Asymptotic Distribution of Bernoulli Quadratic Forms

Abstract: Consider the random quadratic form $T_n=\sum_{1 \leq u < v \leq n} a_{uv} X_u X_v$, where $((a_{uv}))_{1 \leq u, v \leq n}$ is a ${0, 1}$-valued symmetric matrix with zeros on the diagonal, and $X_1,$ $X_2, \ldots, X_n$ are i.i.d. $\mathrm{Ber}(p_n)$. In this paper, we prove various characterization theorems about the limiting distribution of $T_n$, in the sparse regime, where $0 < p_n \ll 1$ such that $\mathbb E(T_n)=O(1).$ The main result is a decomposition theorem showing that distributional limits of $T_n$ is the sum of three components: a mixture which consists of a quadratic function of independent Poisson variables; a linear Poisson mixture, where the mean of the mixture is itself a (possibly infinite) linear combination of independent Poisson random variables; and another independent Poisson component. This is accompanied with a universality result which allows us to replace the Bernoulli distribution with a large class of other discrete distributions. Another consequence of the general theorem is a necessary and sufficient condition for Poisson convergence, where an interesting second moment phenomenon emerges.