Intermediate Singular Values of Random Matrices under Second-Moment and Anti-Concentration Assumptions
Let $A=(\xi_{ij})$ be an $n\times n$ random matrix with independent, not necessarily identically distributed, real entries satisfying \[ \mathbb E\xi_{ij}=0,\qquad \mathbb E\xi_{ij}^{2}=1,\qquad \sup_{z\in\mathbb R}\mathbb P(|\xi_{ij}-z|0$ and $b\in(0,1)$. We prove that, for every $\delta\in(0,1)$, there are constants $c,C>0$, depending only on $a,b,\delta$, such that \[ \mathbb P\left( s_{n+1-l}(A)>Ct\frac l{\sqrt n} \right) \le \exp\!\left(-c\min\{tl,n\}\right) \] for every $t\ge1$ and every $1\le l\le(1-\delta)n$. Thus, with no moment assumption beyond variance, all but a fixed proportion of the largest singular values satisfy the optimal upper bound of order $l/\sqrt n$ with an exponential upper-tail estimate. Combined with the lower bound of the rectangular least singular value bound, this gives $s_{n+1-l}(A)\asymp l/\sqrt n$ with failure probability exponentially small in $l$. The same argument gives the rectangular scale $\sqrt{N+1}-\sqrt{n-l+1}$ for $N\times n$ matrices whenever $N-n+l\le(1-\delta)N$.