The multivariate fractional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process

Starting from the notion of multivariate fractional Brownian Motion introduced in [F. Lavancier, A. Philippe, and D. Surgailis. Covariance function of vector self-similar processes. Statistics & Probability Letters, 2009] we define a multivariate version of the fractional Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. This multivariate Gaussian process is stationary, ergodic and allows for different Hurst exponents on each component. We characterize its correlation matrix and its short and long time asymptotics. Besides the marginal parameters, the cross correlation between one-dimensional marginal components is ruled by two parameters. We consider the problem of their inference, proposing two types of estimator, constructed from discrete observations of the process. We establish their asymptotic theory, in one case in the long time asymptotic setting, in the other case in the infill and long time asymptotic setting. The limit behavior can be asymptotically Gaussian or non-Gaussian, depending on the values of the Hurst exponents of the marginal components. The technical core of the paper relies on the analysis of asymptotic properties of functionals of Gaussian processes, that we establish using Malliavin calculus and Stein's method. We provide numerical experiments that support our theoretical analysis and also suggest a conjecture on the application of one of these estimators to the multivariate fractional Brownian Motion.