Orthant probabilities and the attainment of maxima on a vertex of a simplex

Abstract

We calculate bounds for orthant probabilities for the equicorrelated multivariate normal distribution and use these bounds to show the following: for degree $k>4$, the probability that a $k$-homogeneous polynomial in $n$ variables attains a relative maximum on a vertex of the $n$-dimensional simplex tends to one as the dimension $n$ grows. The bounds we obtain for the orthant probabilities are tight up to $\log (n)$ factors.