Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2003 / iii / Paper 79 / 2 / a

Work in a Hausdorff space $E$, for example a metric space. A rate function is a lower semicontinuous map $I:E\to [0,\infty ]$. A good rate function additionally has compact finite sublevel sets $\{x:I(x)\le r\}$.

A large deviation principle at large-deviation speed $L$ requires, for every open set $G$ and closed set $F$,The conventions are $\log 0=-\infty$ and $\inf \varnothing =+\infty$. A weak large deviation principle imposes the same lower bound but only the upper bound for compact sets. Exponential tightness supplies compact sets $K_M$ with $\mathrm{limsup}{L}^{-1}\log \mathbb{P}(X_L\notin K_M)<-M$ for every $M\ge 0$. The strict inequality can equivalently be obtained from the common non-strict definition by choosing a larger containment level.