Probability Distributions – Generalized Chi Distribution Explained

normal distributionprobability distributions

Let $v\in\mathbb{R}^n$ follow a multivariate Gaussian$(0,I)$ distribution, and $M\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ a matrix. Has the distribution of the Euclidean norm $\|Mv\|$ been studied?

I know that its square follows a generalized chi-square distribution, but this is a different case ("generalized chi"?).

Is there any hope to get expressions for $\|Mv\|$ when $v$ follows a non-Gaussian distribution with mean $0$ and variance $I$?

Best Answer

For the case of elliptically contoured distributions (of which the Gaussian is a special case), the distribution of the norm of Mv is available in the literature (See for example 1 and 2)

  1. M. Rangaswamy, D.D. Weiner, and A. Ozturk, "Non Gaussian Random Vector Identification Using Spherically Invariant Random Processes," Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on 29 (1), 111-124

  2. Computer generation of correlated non-Gaussian radar clutter M Rangaswamy, D Weiner, A Öztürk

Aerospace and Electronic Systems, IEEE Transactions on 31 (1), 106-116