Worst-case identifiability conjecture for general coalescents

Let ΞX\Xi\in\mathcal{X} be the finite measure governing a general Ξ\Xi-coalescent, and let ψnΞ\psi^\Xi_n denote the quantity controlling the additional sample-size requirement for identifiability of the expected site frequency spectrum. Identifiability conjecture. For all ΞX\Xi\in\mathcal{X} and n3n\geq 3,

ψnΞn121.\psi^\Xi_n\leq\left\lfloor\frac{n-1}{2}\right\rfloor-1.

The conjecture asserts that the point-mass coalescent with mass at 1/21/2 gives the worst case for identifiability among the considered Ξ\Xi-coalescents. If true, it would provide a uniform upper bound on the sample-size correction needed to identify the demographic history from the expected site frequency spectrum; the supplied text gives no resolution.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Jeffrey P. Spence, John A. Kamm and Yun S. Song, “The site frequency spectrum for general coalescents”, arXiv:1510.05631 (2016).

Progress summary

Never refreshed

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.