Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2020 / ii / Paper 2 / 28J / Solution

PutThe log-likelihood, apart from an additive constant, isOver the full parameter space its maximum-likelihood estimates are $(\hat{\mu },{\hat{\sigma }}^2)=(\overline{X},S/n)$. Under $H_0$, maximizing over the nuisance parameter $\mu$ gives $({\hat{\mu }}_0,{\sigma }_0^2)=(\overline{X},1)$. Thus the generalized likelihood-ratio test statistic, in the convention $2({\sup }_{\Theta }{\ell }_n-{\sup }_{{\Theta }_0}{\ell }_n)$, is

Under $H_0$, the normal-sample decomposition givesWriting $Z_n=(S-(n-1))/\sqrt{2(n-1)}$, the central limit theorem for a sum of squared independent standard normal variables yields $Z_n\stackrel{d}{\to }N(0,1)$. Hence Slutsky theorem givesand in particular ${\hat{\sigma }}^2\stackrel{P}{\to }1$.

For $h(x)=x-1-\log x$, Taylor theorem at $x=1$ givesConsequentlyby the continuous mapping theorem and Slutsky's theorem. Since the square of a standard normal variable has the chi-squared distribution with one degree of freedom,