Only Segmented Heavy Tails Can Produce a Light-Tailed Minimum

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Foss, Sergey, Scheutzow, Michael, Tarasenko, Anton
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Foss, Sergey
Scheutzow, Michael
Tarasenko, Anton
author_facet Foss, Sergey
Scheutzow, Michael
Tarasenko, Anton
contents A random variable $ξ$ has a {\it light-tailed} distribution (for short: is light-tailed) if it possesses a finite exponential moment, $\E \exp (λξ) <\infty$ for some $λ>0$, and has a {\it heavy-tailed} distribution (is heavy-tailed) if $\E \exp (λξ) = \infty$, for all $λ>0$. In \cite{LSK1}, the authors presented a particular example of a light-tailed random variable that is the minimum of two independent heavy-tailed random variables. In \cite{FKT}, it was shown that any light-tailed random variable with right-unbounded support may be represented as the minimum of two independent heavy-tailed random variables, with further generalisations of the result in a number of directions. We analyse an ``inverse'' question. Namely, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions on the distribution of a heavy-tailed random variable, say $ξ_1$, that allow to find another independent heavy-tailed random variable, say $ξ_2$, such that their minimum $\min (ξ_1,ξ_2)$ is light-tailed. We also provide a number of extensions of this result
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_06452
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Only Segmented Heavy Tails Can Produce a Light-Tailed Minimum
Foss, Sergey
Scheutzow, Michael
Tarasenko, Anton
Probability
60E05, 60F99
A random variable $ξ$ has a {\it light-tailed} distribution (for short: is light-tailed) if it possesses a finite exponential moment, $\E \exp (λξ) <\infty$ for some $λ>0$, and has a {\it heavy-tailed} distribution (is heavy-tailed) if $\E \exp (λξ) = \infty$, for all $λ>0$. In \cite{LSK1}, the authors presented a particular example of a light-tailed random variable that is the minimum of two independent heavy-tailed random variables. In \cite{FKT}, it was shown that any light-tailed random variable with right-unbounded support may be represented as the minimum of two independent heavy-tailed random variables, with further generalisations of the result in a number of directions. We analyse an ``inverse'' question. Namely, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions on the distribution of a heavy-tailed random variable, say $ξ_1$, that allow to find another independent heavy-tailed random variable, say $ξ_2$, such that their minimum $\min (ξ_1,ξ_2)$ is light-tailed. We also provide a number of extensions of this result
title Only Segmented Heavy Tails Can Produce a Light-Tailed Minimum
topic Probability
60E05, 60F99
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06452