# Half-Student-t distribution¶

## Story¶

The Half-Student-t distribution is a Student-t distribution truncated to only have nonzero probability density for values greater than or equal to the location of the peak.

## Parameters¶

The Half-Student-t distribution is peaked at its location parameter $$\mu$$. The peak’s width is dictated by scale parameter $$\sigma$$, which is positive. Finally, the shape parameter, called “degrees of freedom,” is $$\nu$$. This last parameter imparts the distribution with a heavy tail for small $$\nu$$.

## Support¶

The Half-Student-t distribution is supported on the set of all real numbers that are greater than or equal to $$\mu$$, that is on $$[\mu, \infty)$$.

## Probability density function¶

\begin{split} \begin{align} f(y;\mu, \sigma) = \left\{\begin{array}{cll} \frac{\Gamma\left(\frac{\nu+1}{2}\right)}{\Gamma\left(\frac{\nu}{2}\right)\sqrt{\pi \nu \sigma^2}}\left(1 + \frac{(y-\mu)^2}{\nu \sigma^2}\right)^{-\frac{\nu + 1}{2}} & & y \ge \mu \\[1em] 0 & & \text{otherwise}. \end{array}\right. \end{align}\end{split}

## Moments¶

Mean: $$\mu + 2\sigma\sqrt{\frac{\nu}{\pi}}\,\frac{\Gamma\left(\frac{\nu+1}{2}\right)}{\Gamma\left(\frac{\nu}{2}\right)(\nu-1)}$$ for $$\nu > 1$$, otherwise undefined.

Variance: $$\sigma^2\left(\frac{\nu}{\nu - 2}-\frac{4\nu}{\pi(\nu-1)^2}\left(\frac{\Gamma\left(\frac{\nu+1}{2}\right)}{\Gamma\left(\frac{\nu}{2}\right)}\right)^2\right)$$ for $$\nu > 2$$. If $$1 < \nu < 2$$, then the variance is infinite. If $$\nu \le 1$$, the variance is undefined.

## Usage¶

Package

Syntax

NumPy

mu + sigma * np.abs(rg.standard_t(nu))

SciPy sampling

mu + np.abs(scipy.stats.t.rvs(nu, 0, sigma))

Stan sampling

real<lower=mu> y; y ~ student_t(nu, mu, sigma)

Stan rng

real<lower=mu> y; y = mu + abs(student_t(nu, 0, sigma))

## Notes¶

• In Stan, a Half-Student-t is defined by putting a lower bound of $$\mu$$ on the variable and then using a Student-t distribution with location parameter $$\mu$$.

• Only the standard Student-t distribution ($$\mu = 0$$ and $$\sigma = 1$$) is available in NumPy. You can still draw out of the Half-Student-t distribution by performing a transformation on the samples out of the standard Student-t distribution, as shown in the usage, above.

• The Half-Student-t distribution is not available in SciPy. To compute the PDF for $$y \ge \mu$$, use 2 * scipy.stats.t.pdf(y, nu, mu, sigma). To compute the CDF for $$y \ge \mu$$, use 2 * scipy.stats.t.cdf(y, nu, mu, sigma) - 1.

• The Half-Student-t distribution with $$\mu = 0$$ is a useful prior for nonnegative parameters. The parameter $$\nu$$ of the Half-Student-t can be tuned to allow for a heavy tail ($$\nu$$ close to 1) or a light tail (large $$\nu$$).