Testing of Multifractional Brownian Motion

Anomalous diffusion, non-Gaussianity, and nonergodicity for subordinated fractional Brownian motion with a drift

The stochastic motion of a particle with long-range correlated increments (the moving phase) which is intermittently interrupted by immobilizations (the trapping phase) in a disordered medium is considered in the presence of an external drift. In particular, we consider trapping events whose times follow a scale-free distribution with diverging mean trapping time. We construct this process in terms of fractional Brownian motion with constant forcing in which the trapping effect is introduced by the subordination technique, connecting "operational time" with observable "real time." We derive the statistical properties of this process such as non-Gaussianity and nonergodicity, for both ensemble and single-trajectory (time) averages. We demonstrate nice agreement with extensive simulations for the probability density function, skewness, kurtosis, as well as ensemble and time-averaged mean-squared displacements. We place a specific emphasis on the comparisons between the cases with and without drift.

Multifractional Brownian motion characterization based on Hurst exponent estimation and statistical learning

This paper proposes an approach for the estimation of a time-varying Hurst exponent to allow accurate identification of multifractional Brownian motion (MFBM). The contribution provides a prescription for how to deal with the MFBM measurement data to solve regression and classification problems. Theoretical studies are supplemented with computer simulations and real-world examples. Those prove that the procedure proposed in this paper outperforms the best-in-class algorithm.

Cluster Analysis on Locally Asymptotically Self-Similar Processes with Known Number of Clusters

We conduct cluster analysis of a class of locally asymptotically self-similar stochastic processes with finite covariance structures, which includes Brownian motion, fractional Brownian motion, and multifractional Brownian motion as paradigmatic examples. Given the true number of clusters, a new covariance-based dissimilarity measure is introduced, based on which we obtain approximately asymptotically consistent algorithms for clustering locally asymptotically self-similar stochastic processes. In the simulation study, clustering data sampled from fractional and multifractional Brownian motions with distinct Hurst parameters illustrates the approximated asymptotic consistency of the proposed algorithms. Clustering global financial markets’ equity indexes returns and sovereign CDS spreads provides a successful real world application. Implementations in MATLAB of the proposed algorithms and the simulation study are publicly shared in GitHub.

Anomalous diffusion, aging, and nonergodicity of scaled Brownian motion with fractional Gaussian noise: overview of related experimental observations and models

How does a systematic time-dependence of the diffusion coefficient $D (t)$ affect the ergodic and statistical characteristics of fractional Brownian motion (FBM)? Here, we examine how the behavior of the...

Time-averaged mean squared displacement ratio test for Gaussian processes with unknown diffusion coefficient

The time-averaged mean squared displacement (TAMSD) is one of the most common statistics used for the analysis of anomalous diffusion processes. Anomalous diffusion is manifested by non-linear (mostly power-law) characteristics of the process in contrast to normal diffusion where linear characteristics are expected. One can distinguish between sub- and super-diffusive processes. We consider Gaussian anomalous diffusion models and propose a new approach used for their testing. This approach is based on the TAMSD ratio statistic for different time lags. Similar to the TAMSD, this statistic exhibits a specific behavior in the anomalous diffusion regime. Through its structure, it is independent of the diffusion coefficient, which, in general, does not influence anomalous diffusion behavior. Thus, the TAMSD ratio-based approach does not require preliminary knowledge of the diffusion coefficient's value, in contrast to the TAMSD-approach, where this value is crucial in the testing procedure. Based on the quadratic form representation of the TAMSD ratio, we calculate its main characteristics and propose a step-by-step testing procedure that can be applied for any Gaussian process. For the anomalous diffusion model used here, namely, the fractional Brownian motion, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. We show that the new approach outperforms the TAMSD-based one, especially for small sample sizes. Finally, the methodology is applied to the real data from the financial market.