Tilted Euler characteristic densities for Central Limit random fields, with application to "bubbles"

Abstract

Local increases in the mean of a random field are detected (conservatively) by thresholding a field of test statistics at a level $u$ chosen to control the tail probability or $p$-value of its maximum. This $p$-value is approximated by the expected Euler characteristic (EC) of the excursion set of the test statistic field above $u$, denoted $\mathbb{E}φ(A_u)$. Under isotropy, one can use the expansion $\mathbb{E}φ(A_u)=\sum_k\mathcal{V}_kρ_k(u)$, where $\mathcal{V}_k$ is an intrinsic volume of the parameter space and $ρ_k$ is an EC density of the field. EC densities are available for a number of processes, mainly those constructed from (multivariate) Gaussian fields via smooth functions. Using saddlepoint methods, we derive an expansion for $ρ_k(u)$ for fields which are only approximately Gaussian, but for which higher-order cumulants are available. We focus on linear combinations of $n$ independent non-Gaussian fields, whence a Central Limit theorem is in force. The threshold $u$ is allowed to grow with the sample size $n$, in which case our expression has a smaller relative asymptotic error than the Gaussian EC density. Several illustrative examples including an application to "bubbles" data accompany the theory.