Binomial distribution as sum of Bernoulli distributions

binomial distributionprobabilityprobability distributionsprobability theory

Let's give a generic discrete probability space $(\Omega,P)$ where $|\Omega| \le \aleph_0$.

A random variable $X\colon \Omega \to \{0,\dots,n\}$ is a Binomial one if, by definition, $p_X(k):=P(X=k)=\binom{n}{k}p^k(1-p)^{n-k}$ where $k \in \{0,\dots,n\}$ and $p \in [0,1]$ (Is this a correct definition? Is there a more general one?).

I know that if we have $X_1,\dots,X_n\colon\Omega \to \{0,1\}$ independent Bernoulli random variables, then $X:=X_1+\dots+X_n\colon \Omega \to \{0,\dots,n\}$ is a Binomial random variable.

I'm wondering if the converse holds. Namely, if $X\colon \Omega \to \{0,\dots,n\}$ is a Binomial random variable, then can it be written as the sum of independent Bernoulli random variables?

Thank you for your time!

Best Answer

The answer is no.

Consider the probability space $(\Omega, \mathcal{F}, \mathbb{P})$, where $\Omega = \{0,\ldots,n\}$, $\mathcal{F} = \mathcal{P}(\Omega)$ and $\mathbb{P}: \mathcal{F} \to [0,1]$ defined as $\mathbb{P}(A) = \sum\limits_{i \in A} \binom ni p^i(1-p)^{n-i}$ for every $A \in \mathcal{F}$.

Consider now $X: \Omega \to \{0,\ldots, n\}$ as $X(i)=i$ (the identity function).

The distribution of $X$ is clearly binomial.

Suppose now that $X = X_1 + \ldots + X_n$ with $X_i$ iid with law Bernoulli of parameter $p$, all defined on $(\Omega, \mathcal{F}, \mathbb{P})$.

This would mean that there is $A \in \mathcal{F}$ such that $\mathbb{P}(A) = p$.

And this must be true for every $p \in (0,1)$.

Consider the map $F: (0,1) \to \mathcal{P}(\{0,\ldots,n\})$ that for a given $p$ returns such a set $A$. Since the domain is infinite and the codomain is finite there must be a given $A \subseteq \{0,\ldots,n\}$ such that for infinite many $p$ we have $$\sum\limits_{i \in A} \binom ni p^i(1-p)^{n-i} = p$$ Therefore we have $\sum\limits_{i \in A} \binom ni x^i(1-x)^{n-i} = x$ for every real $x$ (polynomial identity).

And now, for example with $n=2$, we obtain that the LHS can be equal to $0,1,x^2,(1-x)^2,2x(1-x),1-x^2,1-(1-x)^2,1-2x(1-x)$, none of which is equal to $x$.

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