On the Distribution of Quadratic Expressions in Various Types of Random Vectors

Several approximations to the distribution of indefinite quadratic expressions in possibly singular Gaussian random vectors and ratios thereof are obtained in this dissertation. It is established that such quadratic expressions can be represented in their most general form as the difference of two positive definite quadratic forms plus a linear combination of Gaussian random variables. New advances on the distribution of quadratic expressions in elliptically contoured vectors, which are expressed as scalar mixtures of Gaussian vectors, are proposed as well. Certain distributional aspects of Hermitian quadratic expressions in complex Gaussian vectors are also investigated. Additionally, approximations to the distributions of quadratic forms in uniform, beta, exponential and gamma random variables as well as order statistics thereof are determined from their exact moments, for which explicit representations are derived. Closed form representations of the approximations to the density functions of the various types of quadratic expressions being considered herein are obtained by adjusting the base density functions associated with the quadratic forms appearing in the decompositions of the expressions by means of polynomials whose coefficients are determined from the moments of the target distributions. Quadratic forms being ubiquitous in Statistics, the proposed distributional results should prove eminently useful.