Algorithms for generating surrogate data for sparsely quantized time series

The method of surrogate data is frequently used for a statistical examination of nonlinear properties underlying original data. If surrogate data sets are generated by a null hypothesis that the data are derived by a linear process, a rejection of the hypothesis means that the original data have more complex properties. However, we found that if an algorithm for generating surrogate data, for example, amplitude adjusted Fourier transformed, is applied to sparsely quantized data, there are large discrepancies between their power spectrum and that of the original data in lower frequency regions. We performed some simulations to confirm that these errors often lead to false rejections.In this paper, in order to prevent such drawbacks, we advance an extended hypothesis, and propose two improved algorithms for generating surrogate data that reduce the discrepancies of the power spectra. We also confirm the validity of the two improved algorithms with numerical simulations by showing that the extended null hypothesis can be rejected if the time series is produced from chaotic dynamical systems. Finally, we applied these algorithms for analyzing financial tick data as a real example; then we showed that the extended null hypothesis cannot be rejected because the nonlinear statistics or nonlinear prediction errors exhibited are the same as those of the original financial tick time series.