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The convex hull of a spherically symmetric sample

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2016

William F. Eddy*
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University
James D. Gale*
Affiliation:
Carnegie-Mellon University
*
Postal address for both authors: Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, U.S.A.
Postal address for both authors: Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, U.S.A.

Abstract

Using the isomorphism between convex subsets of Euclidean space and continuous functions on the unit sphere we describe the probability measure of the convex hull of a random sample. When the sample is spherically symmetric the asymptotic behavior of this measure is determined. There are three distinct limit measures, each corresponding to one of the classical extreme-value distributions. Several properties of each limit are determined.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1981 

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Footnotes

Research supported in part by NSF Grants MCS 78-02422 and MCS-80-05115 to Carnegie-Mellon University.

∗∗

Based in part on a portion of this author's Ph.D. thesis submitted to Carnegie-Mellon University.

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