The density of a spike-and-slab distribution

measure-theoryprobability theory

Let $Z$ be a random variable taking values 0 and 1 with probabilities $\alpha$ and $1-\alpha$. Consider a random variable $X$ that has a distribution given by the following
\begin{align*}
X \mid Z = 1 &\sim G, \\
X \mid Z = 0 &\sim \tilde\delta_0
\end{align*}

where $G$ is some probability measure and $\tilde\delta_0$ is the point-mass measure at zero, that is, $\tilde\delta_0(A) = 1\{0 \in A\}$ for every event $A$. In other words, $X$ has a mixture distribution, commonly expressed as
\begin{align*}
X \sim \alpha \,\tilde\delta_0 + (1-\alpha) G.
\end{align*}

Let $P_X$ denote the distribution of $X$.
We would like to make sense of a density for $P_X$ in the measure-theoretic framework. Let $\mathcal L$ be the Lebesgue measure on $\mathbb R$ and assume that $G$ is absolutely continuous w.r.t. $\mathcal L$ with density function $g(\cdot)$. The distribution of $X$ is not absolutely continuous (a.c.) w.r.t. the $\mathcal L$. But it is a.c. relative to the measure $\mathcal L_0 := \mathcal L + \tilde\delta_0$. Can we say that the $P_X$ has density w.r.t. $\mathcal L_0$ given by
$$
x \mapsto g(x) + \delta_0(x), \quad \text{where} \;
\delta_0(x) =
\begin{cases}
1 & x = 0 \\
0 & x \neq 0
\end{cases} \quad ?
$$

EDIT: The weights are missing from the above as was pointed out below.

Best Answer

Almost. The correct density w.r.t. $\mathcal{L}_0$ would be $$h:x \mapsto (1-\alpha)g(x) + (\alpha - (1-\alpha)g(0)) \delta_0(x)$$ We can check this by noting for any Borel set $A\subseteq \mathbb{R}$, that $$\int_A h(x) \mathcal{L}(dx) =(1-\alpha)G(A)$$ and $$\int_A h(x) \: \bar{\delta}_0(dx) = \alpha \bar{\delta}_0(A),$$ which would give that $$\int_A h(x) \: \mathcal{L}_0 (dx) = (1-\alpha)G(A) + \alpha \bar{\delta}_0(A)=\mathbb{P}_X(A).$$

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