Student's t-distribution

In probability and statistics, Student's t distribution (or simply the t distribution) is a continuous probability distribution that generalizes the standard normal distribution. Like the latter, it is symmetric around zero and bell-shaped.

Student's t
Probability density function
Cumulative distribution function
Parameters degrees of freedom (real, almost always a positive integer)
Support
PDF
CDF

where is the hypergeometric function
Mean for otherwise undefined
Median
Mode
Variance for for
otherwise undefined
Skewness for otherwise undefined
Ex. kurtosis for ∞ for
otherwise undefined
Entropy


where

is the digamma function,
is the beta function.
MGF undefined
CF

for

Expected shortfall

Where is the inverse standardized Student t CDF, and is the standardized Student t PDF.

However, has heavier tails and the amount of probability mass in the tails is controlled by the parameter For the Student's t distribution becomes the standard Cauchy distribution, which has very "fat" tails; whereas for it becomes the standard normal distribution which has very "thin" tails.

The Student's t distribution plays a role in a number of widely used statistical analyses, including Student's t test for assessing the statistical significance of the difference between two sample means, the construction of confidence intervals for the difference between two population means, and in linear regression analysis.

In the form of the location-scale t distribution it generalizes the normal distribution and also arises in the Bayesian analysis of data from a normal family as a compound distribution when marginalizing over the variance parameter.

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