Construction of non-Gaussian random fields with any given correlation structure

Abstract

A positive definite function can be thought of as the covariance function of a Gaussian random field, according to the celebrated Kolmogorov existence theorem. A question of great theoretical and practical interest is: how could one construct a non-Gaussian random field with the given positive definite function as its covariance function? In this paper we demonstrate a novel and simple method for constructing many such non-Gaussian random fields, with the corresponding finite-dimensional distributions identified. Also, we show how to construct a non-Gaussian random field with a given negative definite function as its variogram.