We introduce a class of M×M sample covariance matrices Q which subsumes and generalizes several previous models. The associated population covariance matrix Σ=EQ is assumed to differ from the identity by a matrix of bounded rank. All quantities except the rank of Σ−IM may depend on M in an arbitrary fashion. We investigate the principal components, i.e.\ the top eigenvalues and eigenvectors, of Q. We derive precise large deviation estimates on the generalized components ⟨w,ξi⟩ of the outlier and non-outlier eigenvectors ξi. Our results also hold near the so-called BBP transition, where outliers are created or annihilated, and for degenerate or near-degenerate outliers. We believe the obtained rates of convergence to be optimal. In addition, we derive the asymptotic distribution of the generalized components of the non-outlier eigenvectors. A novel observation arising from our results is that, unlike the eigenvalues, the eigenvectors of the principal components contain information about the \emph{subcritical} spikes of Σ. The proofs use several results on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the uncorrelated matrix Q, satisfying EQ=IM, as input: the isotropic local Marchenko-Pastur law established in [9], level repulsion, and quantum unique ergodicity of the eigenvectors. The latter is a special case of a new universality result for the joint eigenvalue-eigenvector distribution.

In this paper, we prove a necessary and sufficient condition for Tracy-Widom law of Wigner matrices. Consider $N \times N$ symmetric Wigner matrices $H$ with $H_{ij} = N^{-1/2} x_{ij}$, whose upper right entries $x_{ij}$ $(1\le i< j\le N)$ are $i.i.d.$ random variables with distribution $\mu$ and diagonal entries $x_{ii}$ $(1\le i\le N)$ are $i.i.d.$ random variables with distribution $\wt \mu$. The means of $\mu$ and $\wt \mu$ are zero, the variance of $\mu$ is 1, and the variance of $\wt \mu $ is finite. We prove that Tracy-Widom law holds if and only if $\lim_{s\to \infty}s^4\p(|x_{12}| \ge s)=0$. The same criterion holds for Hermitian Wigner matrices.

It is well known that the spectral measure of eigenvalues of a rescaled square non-Hermitian random matrix with independent entries satises the circular law. We consider the product $T X$, where $T$ is a deterministic $N\times M$ matrix and $X$ is a random $M\times  N$ matrix with independent entries having zero mean and variance $(N \wedge M) ^{-1}$. We prove a general local circular law for the empirical spectral distribution (ESD) of $TX$ at any point $z$ away from the unit circle under the assumptions that$ N \sim M$, and the matrix entries $X_{ij} have suciently high moments. More precisely, if $z$ satisfes $| |z|
- 1| \ge \tau$  for arbitrarily small $\tau > 0, the ESD of $TX$ converges to $\tilde{X}_D (z) d A(z)$, where $\tilde{X}_D$ is a rotation-invariant function determined by the singular valuau of $T$ and $dA$ denotes the Lebesgue measure on $\mathbb{C}$. The local circular law is valid around $z$ up to scale $(N \wedge M) ^{-1/4+\epsilon}$ for any  $\epsilon >0$. Moreover, if $|z| >1$ or the matrix entries of $X$ have vanishing third moments, the local circular law is valid around $z$ up to scale $(N \wedge M) ^{-1/2+\epsilon}$ for any  $\epsilon >0$.

We give a solution to the inverse problem (given a prescribed function, find a corresponding group) for large classes of speed, entropy, isoperimetric profile, return probability and Lp-compression functions of finitely generated groups. For smaller classes, we give solutions among solvable groups of exponential volume growth. As corollaries, we prove a recent conjecture of Amir on joint evaluation of speed and entropy exponents and we obtain a new proof of the existence of uncountably many pairwise non-quasi-isometric solvable groups, originally due to Cornulier and Tessera. We also obtain a formula relating the Lp-compression exponent of a group and its wreath product with the cyclic group forp in [1,2].

We prove an estimate on the smallest singular value of a multiplicatively and additively deformed random rectangular matrix. Suppose $n\le N \le M \le dN$ for some constant $d\ge 1$. Let $X$ be an $M\times n$ random matrix with independent and identically distributed entries, which have zero mean, unit variance and arbitrarily high moments. Let $T$ be an $N\times M$ deterministic matrix with comparable singular values $c\le s_{N}(T) \le s_{1}(T) \le c^{-1}$ for some constant $c>0$. Let $A$ be an $N\times n$ deterministic matrix with $\|A\|=O(\sqrt{N})$. Then we prove that for any $\epsilon>0$, the smallest singular value of $TX-A$ is larger than $N^{-\epsilon}(\sqrt{N}-\sqrt{n-1})$ with high probability. If we assume further the entries of $X$ have subgaussian decay, then the smallest singular value of $TX-A$ is at least of the order $\sqrt{N}-\sqrt{n-1}$ with high probability, which is an essentially optimal estimate.