Dense alternating sign matrices and imprecise copulas

Abstract

In this paper, we study discrete quasi-copulas and discrete imprecise copulas of minimal range, which naturally correspond to alternating sign matrices. We identify dense alternating sign matrices as a particularly well-behaved subclass. We prove that the associated discrete imprecise copulas are always coherent and hence avoid sure loss. We further show that a particular extension of the corresponding discrete quasi-copulas to the full domain preserves this structure and yields self-dual imprecise copulas. To the best of our knowledge, this provides the first general result in the literature showing how properties established for discrete imprecise copulas can be preserved when extending them to their full-domain counterpart. We conclude the paper by showing that, for general alternating sign matrices, the associated discrete imprecise copulas need not avoid sure loss, further emphasizing the special role of the subclass of dense alternating sign matrices. We establish, however, that the class of discrete quasi-copulas of minimal range is invariant under all defect transformations

arXiv comment33 pages