Collective vs. individual behaviour for sums of i.i.d. random variables: appearance of the one-big-jump phenomenon

This article studies large and local large deviations for sums of i.i.d. real-valued random variables in the domain of attraction of an $\alpha$-stable law, $\alpha\in (0,2]$, with emphasis on the case $\alpha=2$. There are two different scenarios: either the deviation is realised via a collective behaviour with all summands contributing to the deviation (a Gaussian scenario), or a single summand is atypically large and contributes to the deviation (a one-big-jump scenario). Such results are known when $\alpha \in (0,2)$ (large deviations always follow a one big-jump scenario) or when the random variables admit a moment of order $2+\delta$ for some $\delta>0$. We extend these results, inclu…