Eigenvalues of sample covariance matrices of non-linear processes with infinite variance

Abstract: We study the $k$-largest eigenvalues of heavy-tailed sample covariance matrices of the form $\bX\bX^\T$ in an asymptotic framework, where the dimension of the data and the sample size tend to infinity. To this end, we assume that the rows of $\bX$ are given by independent copies of some stationary process with regularly varying marginals with index $\alpha\in(0,2)$ satisfying large deviation and mixing conditions. We apply these general results to stochastic volatility and GARCH processes.