Statistics of orthogonal axial frames

Abstract

An orthogonal axial frame is a set of orthonormal unit vectors which are known only up to sign. Such frames arise in crystallography and seismology and as principal axes of multivariate data or of some physical tensors. We develop methods for analysing data of this form. A test of uniformity is given. Parametric models for orthogonal axial frames are presented and tests of location are considered. A brief illustrative example involving earthquakes is given.