Fractional Laplace motion

Abstract

Fractional Laplace motion is obtained by subordinating fractional Brownian motion to a gamma process. Used recently to model hydraulic conductivity fields in geophysics, it might also prove useful in modeling financial time series. Its one-dimensional distributions are scale mixtures of normal laws, where the stochastic variance has the generalized gamma distribution. These one-dimensional distributions are more peaked at the mode than is a Gaussian distribution, and their tails are heavier. In this paper we derive the basic properties of the process, including a new property called stochastic self-similarity. We also study the corresponding fractional Laplace noise, which may exhibit long-range dependence. Finally, we discuss practical methods for simulation.