Dudley entropy integral Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-11-05
Let be a centered Gaussian process with a separable version: its relevant suprema are captured by a countable dense index subset. Give the canonical pseudometric of a Gaussian process , and assume it is totally bounded. With metric covering number and diameter , the Dudley entropy integral boundsfor a universal constant . Finiteness of the integral gives a finite expected supremum. For an absolute supremum, include an anchor: . The anchor term cannot generally be omitted.
The proof builds successively finer nets. Write each increment as a telescoping sum between neighboring net scales, bound each finite Gaussian maximum by its scale times the square root of the logarithmic net size, and sum over scales. This becomes the displayed entropy integral.[ref]
The version assumption is substantive. If is uniform on and , every finite vector is zero almost surely and is therefore a degenerate Gaussian vector; the canonical pseudometric is identically zero. Yet for every outcome. Its all-zero separable modification has supremum zero. Finite-dimensional laws alone do not control the supremum of an arbitrary uncountable version.
Separable stochastic process 2026-11-05
A separable stochastic process admits a fixed countable set of indices that captures the relevant sample path behavior outside one common null set. In the usual real-valued setting on a metric space , one formulation requires a countable set that is a dense subset and a null set such that, whenever , each lies in the closure of . Thus and the corresponding process value can be approximated together from .
In particular, outside . The right side is a supremum over a countable set of random variables, so its measurability is accessible through the usual sigma-algebra operations. Continuous sample paths on have this property using the rational numbers as indices and endpoints.
The common null set matters. If has a uniform distribution on and , each fixed is zero almost surely, yet always. For any fixed countable , almost surely. Agreement at every fixed time therefore does not imply agreement of pathwise suprema.[ref]
Measurability Woes by David Pollard. Section 10.4, separable versions and the random-spike counterexample