Derive lower bound for equicorrelation rho

Quick Overview

This question evaluates understanding of positive semidefiniteness for equicorrelation matrices, eigenvalue analysis, and parameter constraints in multivariate statistics.

Derive lower bound for equicorrelation rho

Company: Citadel

Role: Data Scientist

Category: Statistics & Math

Difficulty: medium

Interview Round: Technical Screen

Let X, Y, Z be zero-mean, unit-variance random variables whose pairwise correlations are all equal to ρ. Find the tight lower bound on ρ such that the 3×3 correlation matrix is positive semidefinite. Show your work by analyzing eigenvalues of the equicorrelation matrix. Then generalize: for n variables with common off-diagonal correlation ρ, derive the feasible interval of ρ as a function of n.

Quick Answer: This question evaluates understanding of positive semidefiniteness for equicorrelation matrices, eigenvalue analysis, and parameter constraints in multivariate statistics.

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Oct 13, 2025, 9:49 PM
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Equicorrelation Matrix PSD Condition

Setup

Consider zero-mean, unit-variance random variables whose pairwise correlations are all equal to a common value ρ. The corresponding n×n correlation matrix has 1’s on the diagonal and ρ on every off-diagonal entry (an equicorrelation or compound symmetry matrix):

Σ(ρ) = [σ_ij] where σ_ii = 1 and σ_ij = ρ for i ≠ j.

Tasks

  1. For n = 3, find the tight lower bound on ρ such that the 3×3 correlation matrix is positive semidefinite (PSD). Show your work by analyzing the eigenvalues of the equicorrelation matrix.
  2. Generalize: for n variables with common off-diagonal correlation ρ, derive the full feasible interval of ρ (as a function of n) for which Σ(ρ) is PSD.
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