Asymptotic normality of interpoint distances for high-dimensional data with applications to the two-sample problem

Interpoint distances have applications in many areas of probability and statistics. Thanks to their simplicity of computation, interpoint distance-based procedures are particularly appealing for analysing small samples of high-dimensional data. In this paper, we first study the asymptotic distribution of interpoint distances in the high-dimension, low-sample-size setting and show that it is normal under regularity conditions. We then construct a powerful test for the two-sample problem, which is consistent for detecting location and scale differences. Simulations show that the test compares favourably with existing distance-based tests.