Sub-Poisson distributions: Concentration inequalities, optimal variance proxies, and closure properties

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Leskelä, Lasse, Välimaa, Ian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Leskelä, Lasse
Välimaa, Ian
author_facet Leskelä, Lasse
Välimaa, Ian
contents We introduce a nonasymptotic framework for sub-Poisson distributions with moment generating function dominated by that of a Poisson distribution. At its core is a new notion of optimal sub-Poisson variance proxy, analogous to the variance parameter in the sub-Gaussian setting. This framework allows us to derive a Bennett-type concentration inequality without boundedness assumptions and to show that the sub-Poisson property is closed under key operations including independent sums and convex combinations, but not under all linear operations such as scalar multiplication. We derive bounds relating the sub-Poisson variance proxy to sub-Gaussian and sub-exponential Orlicz norms. Taken together, these results unify the treatment of Bernoulli and Poisson random variables and their signed versions in their natural tail regime.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_12103
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sub-Poisson distributions: Concentration inequalities, optimal variance proxies, and closure properties
Leskelä, Lasse
Välimaa, Ian
Probability
Statistics Theory
60E05, 60E15
We introduce a nonasymptotic framework for sub-Poisson distributions with moment generating function dominated by that of a Poisson distribution. At its core is a new notion of optimal sub-Poisson variance proxy, analogous to the variance parameter in the sub-Gaussian setting. This framework allows us to derive a Bennett-type concentration inequality without boundedness assumptions and to show that the sub-Poisson property is closed under key operations including independent sums and convex combinations, but not under all linear operations such as scalar multiplication. We derive bounds relating the sub-Poisson variance proxy to sub-Gaussian and sub-exponential Orlicz norms. Taken together, these results unify the treatment of Bernoulli and Poisson random variables and their signed versions in their natural tail regime.
title Sub-Poisson distributions: Concentration inequalities, optimal variance proxies, and closure properties
topic Probability
Statistics Theory
60E05, 60E15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12103