Domains and Random Variables

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to establish a theory of random variables on domains. Domain theory is a fundamental component of theoretical computer science, providing mathematical models of computational processes. Random variables are the mainstay of probability theory. Since computational models increasingly involve probabilistic aspects, it's only natural to explore the relationship between these two areas. Our main results show how to cast results about random variables using a domain-theoretic approach. The pay-off is an extension of the results from probability measures to sub-probability measures. We also use our approach to extend the class of domains for which we can classify the domain structure of the space of sub-probability measures.