Generation of Random Variates Using Asymptotic Expansions

Monte-Carlo methods are widely used numerical tools in various fields of application, like rarefied gas dynamics, vacuum technology, stellar dynamics or nuclear physics. A central part in all applications is the generation of random variates according to a given probability law. Fundamental techniques to generate non-uniform random variates are the inversion principle or the acceptance-rejection method. Both procedures can be quite time-consuming if the given probability law has a complicated structure.; In this paper we consider probability laws depending on a small parameter and investigate the use of asmptotic expansions to generate random variates. The results given in the paper are restrictedto first order expansions. We show error estimates for the discrepancy as well as for the bounded Lipschitz distance of the asymptotic expansion. Furthermore the integration error for some special classes of functions is given. The efficiency of the method is proved by a numerical example from rarefied gas flows