On Sharpest Tail Bounds for Functions of Tail Bounded Random Variables
Abstract
Consider real/complex, independent/dependent random variables with respective tail bounds and a measurable function of the r.v.'s. Consider the "sharpest" tail bound of (sharpest in the sense that if were any less, then for some satisfying the conditions, would not satisfy ). Significant research has been done to approximate often with high accuracy. These results are often of the form that for in this family and tail bounds of in this family, is bounded by some with high accuracy. However, the question "what would it take to find exactly?" has received little attention, apparently even for simple cases. This is the question we try to answer. For required to be mutually independent, first the are simplified to be monotone on WLOG. This strengthens convergence in distribution to convergence a.e. (Skorokhod's representation theorem) and allows defining shift operators, which help reduce the space of r.v.'s one searches to find and/or the maximum measure of a subset. We do find in some special cases, however rarely has a closed form. For dependent/not necessarily independent, another reduction in the space of r.v.'s one searches to find is done.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2604.04267,
title = {On Sharpest Tail Bounds for Functions of Tail Bounded Random Variables},
author = {Stephen Jordan Harrison},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.04267},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
PhD thesis, University of New Mexico, 2025. 77 pages. This arXiv version adds comments/references about Skorokhod's representation theorem and Sklar's theorem (absent from the university version), with explicit notes in the text indicating these additions