Time-irreversible stochastic processes are frequently used in natural sciences to explain non-equilibrium phenomena and to design efficient stochastic algorithms. Our main goal in this thesis is to analyse their dynamics by means of large deviation theory. We focus on processes that become deterministic in a certain limit, and characterize their fluctuations around that deterministic limit by Lagrangian rate functions. Our main techniques for establishing these characterizations rely on the connection between large deviations and Hamilton-Jacobi equations. We sketch this connection with examples in the introductory parts of this thesis.
The second part of the thesis is devoted to irreversible processes that are motivated from molecular motors, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and stochastic slow-fast systems. We characterize the asymptotic dynamics of molecular motors by Hamiltonians defined in terms of principal-eigenvalue problems. From our results about the zig-zag sampler used in MCMCs, we learn that maximal irreversibility corresponds to an optimal rate of convergence. In stochastic slow-fast systems, our main theoretical contributions are techniques to work with the variational formulas of Hamiltonians that one encounters in mean-field systems coupled to fast diffusions.
In the final part of the thesis, we study a family of Fokker-Planck equations whose solutions become singular in a certain limit. The associated gradient-flow structures do not converge since the relative entropies diverge in the limit. To remedy this, we propose to work with a different variational formulation that takes fluxes into account, which is motivated by density-flux large deviations.
By examining the deterministic limit of a general $ε$-dependent generator for Markovian dynamics, which includes the continuous Fokker-Planck equations and discrete chemical master equations as two special cases, the intrinsic connections among mesoscopic stochastic dynamics, deterministic ODEs or PDEs, large deviations rate function, and macroscopic thermodynamic potential are established. Our result not only solves the long-lasting question on the origin of entropy function in classical irreversible thermodynamics, but also reveals an emergent feature that arises automatically during the det…
In order to sample from a given target distribution (often of Gibbs type), the Monte Carlo Markov chain method consists in constructing an ergodic Markov process whose invariant measure is the target distribution. By sampling the Markov process one can then compute, approximately, expectations of observables with respect to the target distribution. Often the Markov processes used in practice are time-reversible (i.e., they satisfy detailed balance), but our main goal here is to assess and quantify how the addition of a non-reversible part to the process can be used to improve the sampling prop…
On the Kemeny time for continuous-time reversible and irreversible Markov processes with applications to stochastic resetting and to conditioning towards forever-survival
In Monte-Carlo methods the Markov processes used to sample a given target distribution usually satisfy detailed balance, i.e. they are time-reversible. However, relatively recent results have demonstrated that appropriate reversible and irreversible perturbations can accelerate convergence to equilibrium. In this paper we present some general design principles which apply to general Markov processes. Working with the generator of Markov processes, we prove that for some of the most commonly used performance criteria, i.e., spectral gap, asymptotic variance and large deviation functionals, samp…
We investigate the Large Deviation behavior in small time of continuous Gaussian processes. We introduce a general procedure allowing to derive Large Deviation Principles in small time starting from the well understood context of Large Deviation Principles with a small parameter, going beyond the self-similar case. Several motivating examples are also treated.
Large deviations principle is obtained for terminating multidimensional compound renewal processes. We also obtained the asymptotic of large deviations for the case when a Gibbs change of the original probability measure takes place. The random processes mentioned in the paper are widely used in polymer pinning models.
The problem of (pathwise) large deviations for conditionally continuous Gaussian processes is investigated. The theory of large deviations for Gaussian processes is extended to the wider class of random processes -- the conditionally Gaussian processes. The estimates of level crossing probability for such processes are given as an application.
We obtain large deviation results for a two time-scale model of jump-diffusion processes. The processes on the two time scales are fully inter-dependent, the slow process has small perturbative noise and the fast process is ergodic. Our results extend previous large deviation results for diffusions. We provide concrete examples in their applications to finance and biology, with an explicit calculation of the large deviation rate function.
The term "moderate deviations" is often used in the literature to mean a class of large deviation principles that, in some sense, fill the gap between a convergence in probability to zero (governed by a large deviation principle) and a weak convergence to a centered Normal distribution. We talk about "non-central moderate deviations" when the weak convergence is towards a non-Gaussian distribution. In this paper we study non-central moderate deviations for compound fractional Poisson processes with light-tailed jumps.
We establish a moderate deviation principle for processes with independent increments under certain growth conditions for the characteristics of the process. Using this moderate deviation principle, we give a new proof for Strassen's functional law of the iterated logarithm. In particular, we show that any square-integrable Lévy process satisfies Strassen's law.
We find logarithmic asymptotics of $L_2$-small deviation probabilities for weighted stationary Gaussian processes (both for real and complex-valued) having power-type discrete or continuous spectrum. As in the recent work by Hong, Lifshits and Nazarov, our results are based on the spectral theory of pseudo-differential operators developed by Birman and Solomyak.
Hawkes process is a class of simple point processes with self-exciting and clustering properties. Hawkes process has been widely applied in finance, neuroscience, social networks, criminology, seismology, and many other fields. In this paper, we study precise deviations for Hawkes processes for large time asymptotics, that strictly extends and improves the existing results in the literature. Numerical illustrations will also be provided.
We establish uniqueness for a class of first-order Hamilton-Jacobi equations with Hamiltonians that arise from the large deviations of the empirical measure and empirical flux pair of weakly interacting Markov jump processes. As a corollary we obtain a large deviation principle for the trajectory of the empirical measure and empirical flux pair of such processes. As a second corollary we get same result in the setting where the jump-rates are time-periodic, with period-length that decreases to 0.
In this paper, we prove a process-level, also known as level-3 large deviation principle for a very general class of simple point processes, i.e. nonlinear Hawkes process, with a rate function given by the process-level entropy, which has an explicit formula.
Large deviations for processes with discontinuous statistics
本文研究R +^N上具有常数但在每个边界集{x：x_i=0 for i \in Λ，x_i>0 for i \notin Λ}上具有不同转移机制的马氏过程的样本轨道大偏差问题.由局部大偏差估计导出了全局采样路径大偏差原理和速率函数的整表示。我们的结果完成了Dupuis和Ellis关于描述一般排队网络的Markov过程的样本路径大偏差原理的证明。
We investigate the large deviation behaviour of a point process sequence based on a stationary symmetric stable non-Gaussian discrete-parameter random field using the framework of Hult and Samorodnitsky (2010). Depending on the ergodic theoretic and group theoretic structures of the underlying nonsingular group action, we observe different large deviation behaviours of this point process sequence. We use our results to study the large deviations of various functionals (e.g., partial sum, maxima, etc.) of stationary symmetric stable fields.
Hawkes process is a class of simple point processes that is self-exciting and has clustering effect. The intensity of this point process depends on its entire past history. It has wide applications in finance, neuroscience and many other fields. In this paper, we study the large deviations for nonlinear Hawkes processes. The large deviations for linear Hawkes processes has been studied by Bordenave and Torrisi. In this paper, we prove first a large deviation principle for a special class of nonlinear Hawkes processes, that is, a Markovian Hawkes process with nonlinear rate and exponential exci…
Let $X$ be a Lévy process with regularly varying Lévy measure $ν$. We obtain sample-path large deviations for scaled processes $\bar X_n(t) \triangleq X(nt)/n$ and obtain a similar result for random walks. Our results yield detailed asymptotic estimates in scenarios where multiple big jumps in the increment are required to make a rare event happen; we illustrate this through detailed conditional limit theorems. In addition, we investigate connections with the classical large deviations framework. In that setting, we show that a weak large deviation principle (with logarithmic speed) holds, but…
We introduce a family of Markov growth processes on discrete height functions defined on the 2-dimensional square lattice. Each height function corresponds to a configuration of the six vertex model on the infinite square lattice. We focus on the stochastic six vertex model corresponding to a particular two-parameter family of weights within the ferroelectric regime. It is believed (and partially proven, see Aggarwal, arXiv:2004.13272) that the stochastic six vertex model displays nontrivial pure (i.e., translation invariant and ergodic) Gibbs states of two types, KPZ and liquid. These phases …
Employing the optimal fluctuation method (OFM), we study the large deviation function of long-time averages $(1/T)\int_{-T/2}^{T/2} x^n(t) dt$, $n=1,2, \dots$, of centered stationary Gaussian processes. These processes are correlated and, in general, non-Markovian. We show that the anomalous scaling with time of the large-deviation function, recently observed for $n>2$ for the particular case of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, holds for a whole class of stationary Gaussian processes.
We formulate the large deviations for a class of two scale chemical kinetic processes motivated from biological applications. The result is successfully applied to treat a genetic switching model with positive feedbacks. The corresponding Hamiltonian is convex with respect to the momentum variable as a by-product of the large deviation theory. This property ensures its superiority in the rare event simulations compared with the result obtained by formal WKB asymptotics. The result is of general interest to understand the large deviations for multiscale problems.
In this short note we consider semi-Markov processes satisfying the condition of direction-time independence (Markov renewal processes). We derive large deviation principles and fluctuation theorems for the empirical current and the empirical currents along cycles. Our derivation is based on the joint LDP for the empirical measure and flow recently proved in \cite{MZ}.
