Gaussian semiparametric estimates on the unit sphere
  We study the weak convergence (in the high-frequency limit) of the parameter estimators of power spectrum coefficients associated with Gaussian, spherical and isotropic random fields. In particular, we introduce a Whittle-type approximate maximum likelihood estimator and we investigate its asympotic weak consistency and Gaussianity, in both parametric and semiparametric cases. 
Claudio Durastanti, Xiaohong Lan, Domenico Marinucci
math.ST math.PR stat.TH