A caveat on metrizing convergence in distribution on Hilbert spaces
We consider Sobolev-type distances on probability measures over separable Hilbert spaces involving the Schatten- p norms, which include as special cases a distance first introduced by Bourguin and Campese (2020) when p = 2 , and a distance introduced by Giné and Leon (1980) when p = ∞ . Our analysis shows that, unless p = ∞ , these distances fail to metrize convergence in distribution in infinite dimensions. This clarifies several inconsistencies and misconceptions in the recent literature that arose from confusion between different types of distances.
Authors
- Solesne Bourguin
- Simon Campese
- Giovanni Peccati
- Federico Bassetti
Institutions
- Boston University (US)
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- University of Luxembourg (LU)
- University of Massachusetts Boston (US)
- Hamburg University of Technology (DE)
- Politecnico di Milano (IT)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Statistics & Probability Letters
- Published
- 2026-02-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spl.2026.110671
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Harmonic Analysis Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00