% File src/library/stats/man/GammaDist.Rd % Part of the R package, https://www.R-project.org % Copyright 1995-2020 R Core Team % Distributed under GPL 2 or later \name{GammaDist} \alias{GammaDist} \alias{dgamma} \alias{pgamma} \alias{qgamma} \alias{rgamma} \concept{incomplete gamma function} \title{The Gamma Distribution} \description{ Density, distribution function, quantile function and random generation for the Gamma distribution with parameters \code{shape} and \code{scale}. } \usage{ dgamma(x, shape, rate = 1, scale = 1/rate, log = FALSE) pgamma(q, shape, rate = 1, scale = 1/rate, lower.tail = TRUE, log.p = FALSE) qgamma(p, shape, rate = 1, scale = 1/rate, lower.tail = TRUE, log.p = FALSE) rgamma(n, shape, rate = 1, scale = 1/rate) } \arguments{ \item{x, q}{vector of quantiles.} \item{p}{vector of probabilities.} \item{n}{number of observations. If \code{length(n) > 1}, the length is taken to be the number required.} \item{rate}{an alternative way to specify the scale.} \item{shape, scale}{shape and scale parameters. Must be positive, \code{scale} strictly.} \item{log, log.p}{logical; if \code{TRUE}, probabilities/densities \eqn{p} are returned as \eqn{log(p)}.} \item{lower.tail}{logical; if TRUE (default), probabilities are \eqn{P[X \le x]}, otherwise, \eqn{P[X > x]}.} } \value{ \code{dgamma} gives the density, \code{pgamma} gives the distribution function, \code{qgamma} gives the quantile function, and \code{rgamma} generates random deviates. Invalid arguments will result in return value \code{NaN}, with a warning. The length of the result is determined by \code{n} for \code{rgamma}, and is the maximum of the lengths of the numerical arguments for the other functions. The numerical arguments other than \code{n} are recycled to the length of the result. Only the first elements of the logical arguments are used. } \details{ If \code{scale} is omitted, it assumes the default value of \code{1}. The Gamma distribution with parameters \code{shape} \eqn{=\alpha}{= a} and \code{scale} \eqn{=\sigma}{= s} has density \deqn{ f(x)= \frac{1}{{\sigma}^{\alpha}\Gamma(\alpha)} {x}^{\alpha-1} e^{-x/\sigma}% }{f(x)= 1/(s^a Gamma(a)) x^(a-1) e^-(x/s)} for \eqn{x \ge 0}, \eqn{\alpha > 0}{a > 0} and \eqn{\sigma > 0}{s > 0}. (Here \eqn{\Gamma(\alpha)}{Gamma(a)} is the function implemented by \R's \code{\link{gamma}()} and defined in its help. Note that \eqn{a = 0} corresponds to the trivial distribution with all mass at point 0.) The mean and variance are \eqn{E(X) = \alpha\sigma}{E(X) = a*s} and \eqn{Var(X) = \alpha\sigma^2}{Var(X) = a*s^2}. The cumulative hazard \eqn{H(t) = - \log(1 - F(t))}{H(t) = - log(1 - F(t))} is \preformatted{-pgamma(t, ..., lower = FALSE, log = TRUE) } Note that for smallish values of \code{shape} (and moderate \code{scale}) a large parts of the mass of the Gamma distribution is on values of \eqn{x} so near zero that they will be represented as zero in computer arithmetic. So \code{rgamma} may well return values which will be represented as zero. (This will also happen for very large values of \code{scale} since the actual generation is done for \code{scale = 1}.) } % Have caught all currently known problems; hence no longer say: % Similarly, \code{qgamma} has a very hard job for % small \code{scale}, and warns of potential unreliability for % \code{scale < 1e-10}. \note{ The S (Becker \abbr{et al.}, 1988) parametrization was via \code{shape} and \code{rate}: S had no \code{scale} parameter. It is an error to supply both \code{scale} and \code{rate}. \code{pgamma} is closely related to the incomplete gamma function. As defined by \bibcite{Abramowitz and Stegun 6.5.1} (and by \sQuote{Numerical Recipes}) this is \deqn{P(a,x) = \frac{1}{\Gamma(a)} \int_0^x t^{a-1} e^{-t} dt}{P(a,x) = 1/Gamma(a) integral_0^x t^(a-1) exp(-t) dt} \eqn{P(a, x)} is \code{pgamma(x, a)}. Other authors (for example Karl Pearson in his 1922 tables) omit the normalizing factor, defining the incomplete gamma function \eqn{\gamma(a,x)} as \eqn{\gamma(a,x) = \int_0^x t^{a-1} e^{-t} dt,}{gamma(a,x) = integral_0^x t^(a-1) exp(-t) dt,} i.e., \code{pgamma(x, a) * gamma(a)}. Yet other use the \sQuote{upper} incomplete gamma function, \deqn{\Gamma(a,x) = \int_x^\infty t^{a-1} e^{-t} dt,}{Gamma(a,x) = integral_x^Inf t^(a-1) exp(-t) dt,} which can be computed by \code{pgamma(x, a, lower = FALSE) * gamma(a)}. Note however that \code{pgamma(x, a, ..)} currently requires \eqn{a > 0}, whereas the incomplete gamma function is also defined for negative \eqn{a}. In that case, you can use \code{gamma_inc(a,x)} (for \eqn{\Gamma(a,x)}) from package \CRANpkg{gsl}. See also \url{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_gamma_function}, or \url{https://dlmf.nist.gov/8.2#i}. } \source{ \code{dgamma} is computed via the Poisson density, using code contributed by Catherine Loader (see \code{\link{dbinom}}). \code{pgamma} uses an unpublished (and not otherwise documented) algorithm \sQuote{mainly by Morten Welinder}. \code{qgamma} is based on a C translation of Best, D. J. and D. E. Roberts (1975). Algorithm AS91. Percentage points of the chi-squared distribution. \emph{Applied Statistics}, \bold{24}, 385--388. plus a final Newton step to improve the approximation. \code{rgamma} for \code{shape >= 1} uses Ahrens, J. H. and Dieter, U. (1982). Generating gamma variates by a modified rejection technique. \emph{Communications of the ACM}, \bold{25}, 47--54, and for \code{0 < shape < 1} uses Ahrens, J. H. and Dieter, U. (1974). Computer methods for sampling from gamma, beta, Poisson and binomial distributions. \emph{Computing}, \bold{12}, 223--246. } \references{ Becker, R. A., Chambers, J. M. and Wilks, A. R. (1988). \emph{The New S Language}. Wadsworth & Brooks/Cole. Shea, B. L. (1988). Algorithm AS 239: Chi-squared and incomplete Gamma integral, \emph{Applied Statistics (JRSS C)}, \bold{37}, 466--473. \doi{10.2307/2347328}. Abramowitz, M. and Stegun, I. A. (1972) \emph{Handbook of Mathematical Functions.} New York: Dover. Chapter 6: Gamma and Related Functions. NIST Digital Library of Mathematical Functions. \url{https://dlmf.nist.gov/}, section 8.2. } \seealso{ \code{\link{gamma}} for the gamma function. \link{Distributions} for other standard distributions, including \code{\link{dbeta}} for the Beta distribution and \code{\link{dchisq}} for the chi-squared distribution which is a special case of the Gamma distribution. } \examples{ -log(dgamma(1:4, shape = 1)) p <- (1:9)/10 pgamma(qgamma(p, shape = 2), shape = 2) 1 - 1/exp(qgamma(p, shape = 1)) \donttest{# even for shape = 0.001 about half the mass is on numbers # that cannot be represented accurately (and most of those as zero) pgamma(.Machine$double.xmin, 0.001) pgamma(5e-324, 0.001) # on most machines 5e-324 is the smallest # representable non-zero number table(rgamma(1e4, 0.001) == 0)/1e4 }} \keyword{distribution}