Time Varying Isotropic Vector Random Fields on Spheres

Abstract: For a vector random field that is isotropic and mean square continuous on a sphere and stationary on a temporal domain, this paper derives a general form of its covariance matrix function and provides a series representation for the random field, which involve the ultraspherical polynomials. The series representation is somehow an imitator of the covariance matrix function, but differs from the the spectral representation in terms of the ordinary spherical harmonics, and is useful for modeling and simulation. Some semiparametric models are also illustrated.