Estimation of interaction potentials of spatial point patterns through the maximum likelihood procedure

SummaryA homogeneous spatial point pattern is regarded as one of thermal equilibrium configurations whose points interact on each other through a certain pairwise potential. Parameterizing the potential function, the likelihood is then defined by the Gibbs canonical ensemble. A Monte Carlo simulation method is reviewed to obtain equilibrium point patterns which correspond to a given potential function. An approximate log likelihood function for gas-like patterns is derived in order to compute the maximum likelihood estimates efficiently. Some parametric potential functions are suggested, and the Akaike Information Criterion is used for model selection. The feasibility of our procedure is demonstrated by some computer experiments. Using the procedure, some real data are investigated.