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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.
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 ...
The moment generating function of a real random variable is the expected value of , as a function of the real parameter . For a normal distribution with density f {\textstyle f} , mean μ {\textstyle \mu } and variance σ 2 {\textstyle \sigma ^{2}} , the moment generating function exists and is equal to
The factorial moment generating function generates the factorial moments of the probability distribution. Provided M X {\displaystyle M_{X}} exists in a neighbourhood of t = 1, the n th factorial moment is given by [ 1 ]
Indeed, we know that if X is an exponential r.v. with rate λ, then cX is an exponential r.v. with rate λ/c; the same thing is valid with Gamma variates (and this can be checked using the moment-generating function, see, e.g.,these notes, 10.4-(ii)): multiplication by a positive constant c divides the rate (or, equivalently, multiplies the scale).
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).
This function of is a scalar random ... Another inequality relates the moment-generating function of the Dirichlet distribution to the convex conjugate of the scaled ...
This can be seen using moment generating functions as follows: () = = = = by the independence of the random variables. It remains to plug in the MGF for the non-central chi square distributions into the product and compute the new MGF – this is left as an exercise.