English

Weighted Asymptotically Optimal Sequential Testing

Methodology 2026-02-24 v2

Abstract

This paper develops a framework for incorporating prior information into sequential multiple testing procedures while maintaining asymptotic optimality. We define a weighted log-likelihood ratio (WLLR) as an additive modification of the standard LLR and use it to construct two new sequential tests: the Weighted Gap and Weighted Gap-Intersection procedures. We prove that both procedures provide strong control of the family-wise error rate. Our main theoretical contribution is to show that these weighted procedures are asymptotically optimal; their expected stopping times achieve the theoretical lower bound as the error probabilities vanish. This first-order optimality is shown to be robust, holding in high-dimensional regimes where the number of null hypotheses grows and in settings with random weights, provided that mild, interpretable conditions on the weight distribution are met.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.07588,
  title  = {Weighted Asymptotically Optimal Sequential Testing},
  author = {Soumyabrata Bose and Jay Bartroff},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.07588},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T07:30:47.055Z