Tail correlation functions of max-stable processes: Construction principles, recovery and diversity of some mixing max-stable processes with identical TCF

The tail correlation function (TCF) is a popular bivariate extremal dependence measure to summarize data in the domain of attraction of a max-stable process. For the class of TCFs, being largely unexplored so far, several aspects are contributed: (i) generalization of some mixing max-stable processes (ii) transfer of two geostatistical construction principles to max-stable processes, including the turning bands operator (iii) identification of subclasses of TCFs, including M3 processes based on radial monotone shapes (iv) recovery of subclasses of max-stable processes from TCFs (v) parametric classes (iv) diversity of max-stable processes sharing an identical TCF. We conclude that caution should be exercised when using TCFs for statistical inference.