Deconvolution of distribution functions without integral transforms

Fuente: arXiv
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Autor principal: Kaiser, Henrik
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Kaiser, Henrik
author_facet Kaiser, Henrik
contents We study the recovery of the distribution function $F_X$ of a random variable $X$ that is subject to an independent additive random error $\varepsilon$. To be precise, it is assumed that the target variable $X$ is available only in the form of a blurred surrogate $Y = X + \varepsilon$. The distribution function $F_Y$ then corresponds to the convolution of $F_X$ and $F_\varepsilon$, so that the reconstruction of $F_X$ is some kind of deconvolution problem. Those have a long history in mathematics and various approaches have been proposed in the past. Most of them use integral transforms or matrix algorithms. The present article avoids these tools and is entirely confined to the domain of distribution functions. Our main idea relies on a transformation of a first kind to a second kind integral equation. Thereof, starting with a right-lateral discrete target and error variable, a representation for $F_X$ in terms of available quantities is obtained, which facilitates the unbiased estimation through a $Y$-sample. It turns out that these results even extend to cases in which $X$ is not discrete. Finally, in a general setup, our approach gives rise to an approximation for $F_X$ as a certain Neumann sum. The properties of this sum are briefly examined theoretically and visually. The paper is concluded with a short discussion of operator theoretical aspects and an outlook on further research. Various plots underline our results and illustrate the capabilities of our functions with regard to estimation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_25916
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deconvolution of distribution functions without integral transforms
Kaiser, Henrik
Statistics Theory
Probability
60E05, 62G05, 62G07, 45A05
We study the recovery of the distribution function $F_X$ of a random variable $X$ that is subject to an independent additive random error $\varepsilon$. To be precise, it is assumed that the target variable $X$ is available only in the form of a blurred surrogate $Y = X + \varepsilon$. The distribution function $F_Y$ then corresponds to the convolution of $F_X$ and $F_\varepsilon$, so that the reconstruction of $F_X$ is some kind of deconvolution problem. Those have a long history in mathematics and various approaches have been proposed in the past. Most of them use integral transforms or matrix algorithms. The present article avoids these tools and is entirely confined to the domain of distribution functions. Our main idea relies on a transformation of a first kind to a second kind integral equation. Thereof, starting with a right-lateral discrete target and error variable, a representation for $F_X$ in terms of available quantities is obtained, which facilitates the unbiased estimation through a $Y$-sample. It turns out that these results even extend to cases in which $X$ is not discrete. Finally, in a general setup, our approach gives rise to an approximation for $F_X$ as a certain Neumann sum. The properties of this sum are briefly examined theoretically and visually. The paper is concluded with a short discussion of operator theoretical aspects and an outlook on further research. Various plots underline our results and illustrate the capabilities of our functions with regard to estimation.
title Deconvolution of distribution functions without integral transforms
topic Statistics Theory
Probability
60E05, 62G05, 62G07, 45A05
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25916