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In probability theory and statistics, the moment-generating function of a real-valued random variable is an alternative specification of its probability distribution.Thus, it provides the basis of an alternative route to analytical results compared with working directly with probability density functions or cumulative distribution functions.
In probability theory and statistics, the factorial moment generating function (FMGF) of the probability distribution of a real-valued random variable X is defined as = [] for all complex numbers t for which this expected value exists.
Other generating functions of random variables include the moment-generating function, the characteristic function and the cumulant generating function. The probability generating function is also equivalent to the factorial moment generating function , which as E [ z X ] {\displaystyle \operatorname {E} \left[z^{X}\right]} can also be ...
So the cumulant generating function is the logarithm of the moment generating function = (). The first cumulant is the expected value ; the second and third cumulants are respectively the second and third central moments (the second central moment is the variance ); but the higher cumulants are neither moments nor central moments, but ...
In probability theory, it is possible to approximate the moments of a function f of a random variable X using Taylor expansions, provided that f is sufficiently differentiable and that the moments of X are finite. A simulation-based alternative to this approximation is the application of Monte Carlo simulations.
The characteristic function always exists when treated as a function of a real-valued argument, unlike the moment-generating function. There are relations between the behavior of the characteristic function of a distribution and properties of the distribution, such as the existence of moments and the existence of a density function.
In probability theory, the factorial moment is a mathematical quantity defined as the expectation or average of the falling factorial of a random variable.Factorial moments are useful for studying non-negative integer-valued random variables, [1] and arise in the use of probability-generating functions to derive the moments of discrete random variables.
In probability theory, a Chernoff bound is an exponentially decreasing upper bound on the tail of a random variable based on its moment generating function.The minimum of all such exponential bounds forms the Chernoff or Chernoff-Cramér bound, which may decay faster than exponential (e.g. sub-Gaussian).