No label defined (Q3974894)

[For the entire collection see Zbl 0724.00015.] For geometers a coordinate-free description is given of the ways in which a parametric statistical model gives rise to various geometric structures, notably a Riemannian manifold and a one-parameter family of torsion-free connections. The basic concept is that of a yoke, introduced by \textit{O. E. Barndorff-Nielsen} [Indian J. Math. 29, No. 3, 335-350 (1987; Zbl 0663.62013)]. A yoke on a manifold \(M\) is a smooth function \(\rho:M\times M\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) such that on the diagonal \(d_ 1\rho=0\) and \(d_ 1d_ 2\rho\) is non-degenerate, where \(d_ i\) denotes exterior differentiation in the i-th copy of \(M\). As shown by \textit{P. Blaesild} [Ann. Inst. Stat. Math. 43, 95-113 (1991)], a yoke on \(M\) yields a collection of tensor fields on \(M\). Applications to statistical inference are indicated.