 Solution

Write $s=\sigma /\sqrt{n}$, $\mu =\delta /s$, and let $Z_1,Z_2$ be independent standard normal random variables obtained by centering and scaling the separate stage means. ThenThe second statistic uses all patients, so the statistics are correlated even though the stages' new observations are independent. Their covariance is $1/\sqrt{2}$ and each variance is one. This gives the exact bivariate normal distributionUnder the null hypothesis both means are zero. At $\delta ={\delta }^{\ast }$ replace $\mu$ by $\sqrt{n}{\delta }^{\ast }/\sigma$; the mean vector is $(\sqrt{n}{\delta }^{\ast }/\sigma ,\sqrt{2n}{\delta }^{\ast }/\sigma {)}^T$. In this group sequential design the full-sample statistic may be viewed as a potential statistic from the underlying sequence of outcomes, even on paths where recruitment stops.