Matrix variate Birnbaum-Saunders distribution under elliptical models

Abstract: This paper derives the elliptical matrix variate version of the well known univariate Birnbaum and Saunders distribution. A generalisation based on a matrix transformation is proposed, instead of the independent element by element representation of the Gaussian univariate version of 1969. New results on Jacobians were needed to derived the matrix variate distribution. A number of special cases are studied and some basic properties are found. Finally, an example based on real data of two populations is provided. The maximum likelihood estimates are found for a number of matrix variate generalised Birnbaum-Saunders distributions based on Kotz models. A comparison with the Gaussian kernel is also given by using a modified BIC criterion.