Records in stochastic processes -- Theory and applications

Abstract: In recent years there has been a surge of interest in the statistics of record-breaking events in stochastic processes. Along with that, many new and interesting applications of the theory of records were discovered and explored. The record statistics of uncorrelated random variables sampled from time-dependent distributions was studied extensively. The findings were applied in various areas to model and explain record-breaking events in observational data. Particularly interesting and fruitful was the study of record-breaking temperatures and their connection with global warming, but also records in sports, biology and some areas in physics were considered in the last years. Similarly, researchers have recently started to understand the record statistics of correlated processes such as random walks, which can be helpful to model record events in financial time series. This review is an attempt to summarize and evaluate the progress that was made in the field of record statistics throughout the last years.