pmvnorm: Multivariate Normal Distribution

In mvtnorm: Multivariate Normal and t Distributions

Multivariate Normal Distribution

Description

Computes the distribution function of the multivariate normal distribution for arbitrary limits and correlation matrices.

Usage

pmvnorm(lower=-Inf, upper=Inf, mean=rep(0, length(lower)),
           corr=NULL, sigma=NULL, algorithm = GenzBretz(), keepAttr=TRUE, 
           seed = NULL, ...)

Arguments

lower	the vector of lower limits of length n.
upper	the vector of upper limits of length n.
mean	the mean vector of length n.
corr	the correlation matrix of dimension n.
sigma	the covariance matrix of dimension n less than 1000. Either corr or sigma can be specified. If sigma is given, the problem is standardized internally. If corr is given, it is assumed that appropriate standardization was performed by the user. If neither corr nor sigma is given, the identity matrix is used for sigma.
algorithm	an object of class GenzBretz, Miwa or TVPACK specifying both the algorithm to be used as well as the associated hyper parameters.
keepAttr	logical indicating if attributes such as error and msg should be attached to the return value. The default, TRUE is back compatible.
seed	an object specifying if and how the random number generator should be initialized, see simulate.
...	additional parameters (currently given to GenzBretz for backward compatibility issues).

Details

This program involves the computation of multivariate normal probabilities with arbitrary correlation matrices. It involves both the computation of singular and nonsingular probabilities. The implemented methodology is described in \bibcitetmvtnorm::numerical-:1992 and \bibcitetmvtnorm::comparison:1993 for algorithm GenzBretz, in \bibcitetmvtnorm::Miwa+Hayter+Kuriki:2003 for algorithm Miwa, useful up to dimension 20, and \bibcitetmvtnorm::Genz:2004 for the TVPACK algorithm, which covers 2- and 3-dimensional problems for semi-infinite integration regions.

Note the default algorithm GenzBretz is randomized and hence slightly depends on .Random.seed and that both -Inf and +Inf may be specified in lower and upper. For more details see pmvt.

The multivariate normal case is treated as a special case of pmvt with df=0 and univariate problems are passed to pnorm.

The multivariate normal density and random deviates are available using dmvnorm and rmvnorm.

pmvnorm is based on original implementations by Alan Genz, Frank Bretz, and Tetsuhisa Miwa developed for computing accurate approximations to the normal integral. Users interested in computing log-likelihoods involving such normal probabilities should consider function lpmvnorm, which is more flexible and efficient for this task and comes with the ability to evaluate score functions.

An overview is available from \bibcitetmvtnorm::Genz_Bretz_2009.

Value

The evaluated distribution function is returned, if keepAttr is true, with attributes

error	estimated absolute error
msg	status message(s).
algorithm	a character string with class(algorithm).

References

\bibshow

*

See Also

qmvnorm for quantiles and lpmvnorm for log-likelihoods.

Examples

n <- 5
mean <- rep(0, 5)
lower <- rep(-1, 5)
upper <- rep(3, 5)
corr <- diag(5)
corr[lower.tri(corr)] <- 0.5
corr[upper.tri(corr)] <- 0.5
prob <- pmvnorm(lower, upper, mean, corr)
print(prob)

stopifnot(pmvnorm(lower=-Inf, upper=3, mean=0, sigma=1) == pnorm(3))

a <- pmvnorm(lower=-Inf,upper=c(.3,.5),mean=c(2,4),diag(2))

stopifnot(round(a,16) == round(prod(pnorm(c(.3,.5),c(2,4))),16))

a <- pmvnorm(lower=-Inf,upper=c(.3,.5,1),mean=c(2,4,1),diag(3))

stopifnot(round(a,16) == round(prod(pnorm(c(.3,.5,1),c(2,4,1))),16))

# Example from R News paper (original by Genz, 1992):

m <- 3
sigma <- diag(3)
sigma[2,1] <- 3/5
sigma[3,1] <- 1/3
sigma[3,2] <- 11/15
pmvnorm(lower=rep(-Inf, m), upper=c(1,4,2), mean=rep(0, m), corr=sigma)

# Correlation and Covariance

a <- pmvnorm(lower=-Inf, upper=c(2,2), sigma = diag(2)*2)
b <- pmvnorm(lower=-Inf, upper=c(2,2)/sqrt(2), corr=diag(2))
stopifnot(all.equal(round(a,5) , round(b, 5)))

mvtnorm documentation built on May 21, 2026, 3:01 p.m.