Motivated by applications in Markov chain Monte Carlo, we discuss what it means for one Markov chain to be an approximation to another. Specifically included in that discussion are situations in which a Markov chain with continuous state space is approximated by one with finite state space. A simple sufficient condition for close approximation is derived, which indicates the existence of three distinct approximation regimes. Counterexamples are presented to show that these regimes are real and not artifacts of the proof technique. An application to the ``ball walk'' of Lovász and Simonovits is provided as an illustrative example.
This article continues our study of Markovian consistency and Markov copulae. In particular, we characterize the weak Markovian consistency for finite Markov chains. We discuss some aspects of dependence between the components of a multivariate Markov chain in the context of weak Markovian consistency and strong Markovian consistency. In this connection, we also introduce and discuss the concept of weak Markov copulae.
We consider the Markov chain approximations for singular stable-like processes. First we obtain properties of some Markov chains. Then we construct the approximating Markov chains and give a necessary condition for weak convergence of these chains to singular stable-like processes.
Given a strongly stationary Markov chain and a finite set of stopping rules, we prove the existence of a polynomial algorithm which projects the Markov chain onto a minimal Markov chain without redundant information. Markov complexity is hence defined and tested on some classical problems.
We consider a class of continuous time Markov chains on $\Z^d$. These chains are the discrete space analogue of Markov processes with jumps. Under some conditions, we show that harmonic functions associated with these Markov chains are Hölder continuous.
We consider the higher-order Markov Chain, and characterize the second order Markov chains admitting every probability distribution vector as a stationary vector. The result is used to construct Markov chains of higher-order with the same property. We also study conditions under which the set of stationary vectors of the Markov chain has a certain affine dimension.
All one-condition generalized inverses of the Markovian kernel I - P, where P is the transition matrix of a finite irreducible Markov chain, can be uniquely specified in terms of the stationary probabilities and the mean first passage times of the underlying Markov chain. Special sub-families include the group inverse of I - P, Kemeny and Snell's fundamental matrix of the Markov chain and the Moore-Penrose g-inverse. The elements of some sub-families of the generalized inverses can also be re-expressed involving the second moments of the recurrence time variables. Some applications to Kemeny's…
The asymptotic variance is an important criterion to evaluate the performance of Markov chains, especially for the central limit theorems. We give the variational formulas for the asymptotic variance of discrete-time (non-reversible) Markov chains on general state space. The variational formulas provide many applications, extending the classical Peskun's comparison theorem to non-reversible Markov chains, and obtaining several comparison theorems between Markov chains with various perturbations.
In this paper we discuss weak convergence of continuous-time Markov chains to a non-symmetric pure jump process. We approach this problem using Dirichlet forms as well as semimartingales. As an application, we discuss how to approximate a given Markov process by Markov chains.
In this paper we continue the study of conditional Markov chains (CMCs) with finite state spaces, that we initiated in Bielecki, Jakubowski and Niewęgłowski (2015). Here, we turn our attention to the study of Markov consistency and Markov copulae with regard to CMCs, and thus we follow up on the study of Markov consistency and Markov copulae for ordinary Markov chains that we presented in Bielecki, Jakubowski and Niewęgłowski (2013).
We study inhomogeneous continuous-time weakly ergodic Markov chains with a finite state space. We introduce the notion of a Markov chain with the regular structure of an infinitesimal matrix and study the sharp upper bounds on the rate of convergence for such class of Markov chains.
In this paper, we present reversibility preserving operations on Markov chain transition matrices. Simple row and column operations allow us to create new reversible transition matrices and yield an easy method for checking a Markov chain for reversibility.
We define fully coupled forward-backward stochastic differential equations on spaces related to continuous time, finite state Markov Chains. Existence and uniqueness results of the fully coupled forward-backward stochastic differential equations on Markov Chains are obtained.
The main purpose of this work is to study self-similar branching Markov chains. First we will construct such a process. Then we will establish certain Limit Theorems using the theory of self-similar Markov processes.
We prove that an irreducible aperiodic Markov chain is geometrically ergodic if and only if any separately bounded functional of the stationary chain satisfies an appropriate subgaussian deviation inequality from its mean.
This paper studies the augmented truncation of discrete-time block-monotone Markov chains under geometric drift conditions. We first present a bound for the total variation distance between the stationary distributions of an original Markov chain and its augmented truncation. We also obtain such error bounds for more general cases where an original Markov chain itself may not be block-monotone but is block-wise dominated by a block-monotone Markov chain. Finally we discuss the application of our results to GI/G/1-type Markov chains.
Extensions of Kemeny's constant, as derived for irreducible finite Markov chains in discrete time, to Markov renewal processes and Markov chains in continuous time are discussed. Three alternative Kemeny's functions and their variants are considered. Typically, they lead to a constant if and only if the mean holding times between the states in the Markov renewal process are constant. However one particular variant leads to a constant, analogous to the discrete time Markov chain result. Specifically, if the state space is finite, the weighted sum of the mean first passage times (omitting the me…
We consider the problem of characterising expected hitting times and hitting probabilities for imprecise Markov chains. To this end, we consider three distinct ways in which imprecise Markov chains have been defined in the literature: as sets of homogeneous Markov chains, as sets of more general stochastic processes, and as game-theoretic probability models. Our first contribution is that all these different types of imprecise Markov chains have the same lower and upper expected hitting times, and similarly the hitting probabilities are the same for these three types. Moreover, we provide a ch…
We consider periodic Markov chains with absorption. Applying to iterates of this periodic Markov chain criteria for the exponential convergence of conditional distributions of aperiodic absorbed Markov chains, we obtain exponential estimates for the periodic asymptotic behavior of the semigroup of the Markov chain. This implies in particular the exponential convergence in total variation of the conditional distribution of the Markov chain given non-absorption to a periodic sequence of limit measures and we characterize the cases where this sequence is constant, which corresponds to the cases w…
We study an approximation method of stationary characters of a two-dimensional Markov chain via the Stein method. For this purpose, innovative methods are developed to estimate the moments of the Markov chain, as well as the solution to the Poisson equation with a partial differential operator.
Let $(ξ_n)_{n=0}^\infty$ be a nonhomogeneous Markov chain taking values from finite state-space of $\mathbf{X}=\{1,2,\ldots,b\}$. In this paper, we will study the generalized entropy ergodic theorem with almost-everywhere and $\mathcal{L}_1$ convergence for nonhomogeneous Markov chains, which generalizes the corresponding classical results for the Markov chains.
In this paper, we quantify some known approximation to the Curie-Weiss model via applying the Stein method to the Markov chain whose stationary distribution coincides with Curie-Weiss model.
We are interested in studying the sensitivity of diffusion processes or their approximations by Markov Chains with respect to a perturbation of the coefficients.
Starting from a Markov chain with a finite alphabet, we consider the chain obtained when all but one symbol are undistinguishable for the practitioner. We study necessary and sufficient conditions for this chain to have continuous transition probabilities with respect to the past.
Improved rates of convergence for ergodic Markov chains and relaxed conditions for them, as well as analogous convergence results for some non-homogeneous Markov chains are studied. The setting from the previous works is extended. Examples are provided where the new bounds are better and where they give the same convergence rate as in the classical Markov -- Dobrushin inequality.
In this paper we study the almost sure central limit theorem started from a point for additive functionals of a stationary and ergodic Markov chain via a martingale approximation in the almost sure sense. As a consequence we derive the quenched CLT for additive functionals or reversible Markov chains.
Stemmed from the derivation of the optimal control to a stochastic linear-quadratic control problem with Markov jumps, we study one kind of backward stochastic differential equations (BSDEs) that the generator f is affected by a Markovian switching. Then, the case that the Markov chain is involved in a large state space is considered. Following the classical approach, a hierarchical approach is adopted to reduce the complexity and a singularly perturbed Markov chain is involved. We will study the asymptotic property of BSDE with the singularly perturbed Markov chain. At last, as an application…
This is the story of the encounter between two worlds: the world of random walks and the world of Variable Length Markov Chains (VLMC). The meeting point turns around the semi-Markov property of underlying processes.
In this paper we are concerned with hitting times of a family of density-dependent Markov chains. A moderate deviation principle of the hitting time is given. The proof of the main theorem relies heavily on moderate deviations of density-dependent Markov chains given in \cite{Xue2021} and upper bounds of large deviations of Markov processes given in \cite{Dupuis1991}. An analogue moderate deviation of the hitting time of the diffusion approximation of the density-dependent Markov chain introduced in \cite{Ethier1986} is also given.
We consider a time-homogeneous Markov chain $X_n$, $n\ge0$, valued in ${\bf R}$. Suppose that this chain is transient, that is, $X_n$ generates a $σ$-finite renewal measure. We prove the key renewal theorem under condition that this chain has asymptotically homogeneous at infinity jumps and asymptotically positive drift.
We study certain properties of the function space of autocorrelation functions of Unit Continuous Time Markov Chains (CTMCs). It is shown that under particular conditions, the $L^p$ norm of the autocorrelation function of arbitrary finite state space CTMCs is infinite. Several interesting inferences are made for point processes associated with CTMCs/ Discrete Time Markov Chains (DTMCs).
In this paper we study the additive functionals of Markov chains via conditioning with respect to both past and future of the chain. We shall point out new sufficient projective conditions, which assure that the variance of partial sums of n consecutive random variables of a stationary Markov chain is linear in n. The paper also addresses the central limit theorem problem and is listing several open questions.
The present paper establishes a discrete version of the result obtained by P. Carr and S. Nadtochiy (2011) for 1-dimensional diffusion processes. Our result is for Markov chains on $\mathbf{Z}^d$.
We derive an adiabatic theorem for Markov chains using well known facts about mixing and relaxation times. We discuss the results in the context of the recent developments in adiabatic quantum computation.
This paper studies the last-column-block-augmented northwest-corner truncation (LC-block-augmented truncation, for short) of discrete-time block-monotone Markov chains under subgeometric drift conditions. The main result of this paper is to present an upper bound for the total variation distance between the stationary probability vectors of a block-monotone Markov chain and its LC-block-augmented truncation. The main result is extended to Markov chains that themselves may not be block monotone but are block-wise dominated by block-monotone Markov chains satisfying modified drift conditions. Fi…
Motivated by the notion of resistance distance on graph, we define a new resistance distance between two states on a given finite ergodic Markov chain based on its fundamental matrix. We prove a few equivalent formulations and discuss its relation with other parameters of the Markov chain such as its group inverse, stationary distribution, eigenvalues or hitting time. In addition, building upon existing sum rules for the hitting time of Markov chain, we give sum rules of this new resistance distance of Markov chains that resembles the sum rules of the resistance distance on graph. This yields …
In this paper we consider Markov chains with transition rates that depend on a small parameter $\varepsilon$. Under a mild assumption on the asymptotics of these transition rates, we describe the behavior of the chain at various $\varepsilon$-dependent time scales, i.e., we calculate the metastable distributions.
We consider a discrete-time Markov chain $(X^t,Y^t)$, $t=0,1,2,...$, where the $X$-component forms a Markov chain itself. Assume that $(X^t)$ is Harris-ergodic and consider an auxiliary Markov chain ${\hat{Y}^t}$ whose transition probabilities are the averages of transition probabilities of the $Y$-component of the $(X,Y)$-chain, where the averaging is weighted by the stationary distribution of the $X$-component. We first provide natural conditions in terms of test functions ensuring that the $\hat{Y}$-chain is positive recurrent and then prove that these conditions are also sufficient for pos…
In the paper, the law of the iterated logarithm for additive functionals of Markov chains is obtained under some weak conditions, which are weaker than the conditions of invariance principle of additive functionals of Markov chains in M. Maxwell and M. Woodroofe (2000). The main technique is the martingale argument and the theory of fractional coboundaries.
We introduce block Markov chains (BMCs) indexed by an infinite rooted tree. It turns out that BMCs define a new class of tree-indexed Markovian processes. We clarify the structure of BMCs in connection with Markov chains (MCs) and Markov random fields (MRFs). Mainly, show that probability measures which are BMCs for every root are indeed Markov chains (MCs) and yet they form a strict subclass of Markov random fields (MRFs) on the considered tree. Conversely, a class of MCs which are BMCs is characterized. Furthermore, we establish that in the one-dimensional case the class of BMCs coincides wi…
We develop Markov chain mixing time estimates for a class of Markov chains with restricted transitions. We assume transitions may occur along a cycle of $n$ nodes and on $n^γ$ additional edges, where $γ< 1$. We find that the mixing times of reversible Markov chains properly interpolate between the mixing times of the cycle with no added edges and of the cycle with $cn$ added edges (which is in turn a Small World Network model). In the case of non-reversible Markov-chains, a considerable gap remains between lower and upper bounds, but simulations give hope to experience a significant speedup co…
It is often possible to speed up the mixing of a Markov chain $\{ X_{t} \}_{t \in \mathbb{N}}$ on a state space $Ω$ by \textit{lifting}, that is, running a more efficient Markov chain $\{ \hat{X}_{t} \}_{t \in \mathbb{N}}$ on a larger state space $\hatΩ \supset Ω$ that projects to $\{ X_{t} \}_{t \in \mathbb{N}}$ in a certain sense. In [CLP99], Chen, Lov{á}sz and Pak prove that for Markov chains on finite state spaces, the mixing time of any lift of a Markov chain is at least the square root of the mixing time of the original chain, up to a factor that depends on the stationary measure. Unfort…
This note presents a simple proof of the monotonicity of the invariant distribution of a discrete Markov chain with a finite state space. This answers a question recently raised by David Siegmund.
In 1956, Dobrushin proved a definitive central limit theorem for non-homogeneous Markov chains. In this note, a shorter and different proof elucidating more the assumptions is given through martingale approximation.
It is well known that for a strictly stationary, reversible, Harris recurrent Markov chain, the $ρ$-mixing condition is equivalent to geometric ergodicity and to a "spectral gap" condition. In this note, it will be shown with an example that for that class of Markov chains, the "interlaced" variant of the $ρ$-mixing condition fails to be equivalent to those conditions.
The Markov chain approximation of a one-dimensional symmetric diffusion is investigated in this paper. Given an irreducible reflecting diffusion on a closed interval with scale function $s$ and speed measure $m$, the approximating Markov chains are constructed explicitly through the trace of the Dirichlet form corresponding to the diffusion. One feature of our approach is that it does not require uniform ellipticity on diffusion coefficient of the limit object or uniform regularity on conductances of the approximative Markov chains, as imposed usually in the previous related works.
We consider continuous-time Markov chain on a finite state space X. We assume X can be clustered into several subsets such that the intra-transition rates within these subsets are of order $\mathcal{O}(\frac{1}ε)$ comparing to the inter-transition rates among them, where $0 < ε\ll 1$. Several asymptotic results are obtained as $ε\rightarrow 0$ concerning the convergence of Kolmogorov backward equation, Poincaré constant, (modified) logarithmic Sobolev constant to their counterparts of certain reduced Markov chain. Both reversible and irreversible Markov chains are considered.
In this paper we consider stationary Markov chains with trivial two-sided tail sigma field, and prove that additive functionals satisfy the central limit theorem provided the variance of partial sums divided by n is bounded.
The extremes of a univariate Markov chain with regulary varying stationary marginal distribution and asymptotically linear behavior are known to exhibit a multiplicative random walk structure called the tail chain. In this paper, we extend this fact to Markov chains with multivariate regularly varying marginal distribution in R^d. We analyze both the forward and the backward tail process and show that they mutually determine each other through a kind of adjoint relation. In a broader setting, it will be seen that even for non-Markovian underlying processes a Markovian forward tail chain always…
We consider a finite state discrete time process X. Without loss of generality the finite state space can be identified with the set of unit vectors {e1, e2, . . . , eN} with ei = (0, . . . , 0, 1, 0, . . . , 0)0 2 RN. For a Markov chain the times the process stays in any state are geometrically distributed. This condition is relaxed for a semi-Markov chain. We first derive the semimartingale dynamics for a semi-Markov chain. We then consider the situation where the chain is observed in noise. We suggest how to estimate the occupation times in the states and derive filters and smoothers for qu…
This paper considers the normalized fundamental matrix for the northwest-corner (NW-corner) truncation of ergodic continuous-time Markov chains, technically, of their infinitesimal generators. We first present a limit formula for the normalized fundamental matrix of the NW-corner truncation of the ergodic (infinitesimal) generator. The limit formula shows that, as the order (size) of the NW-corner truncation diverges to infinity, the corresponding normalized fundamental matrix converges to a stochastic matrix whose rows are all equal to the stationary distribution vector of the ergodic generat…
Many finite-state reversible Markov chains can be naturally decomposed into "projection" and "restriction" chains. In this paper we provide bounds on the total variation mixing times of the original chain in terms of the mixing properties of these related chains. This paper is in the tradition of existing bounds on Poincare and log-Sobolev constants of Markov chains in terms of similar decompositions [JSTV04, MR02, MR06, MY09]. Our proofs are simple, relying largely on recent results relating hitting and mixing times of reversible Markov chains [PS13, Oli12]. We describe situations in which ou…
We study ergodic properties of nonlinear Markov chains and stochastic McKean-Vlasov equations. For nonlinear Markov chains we obtain sufficient conditions for existence and uniqueness of an invariant measure and uniform ergodicity. We also prove optimality of these conditions. For stochastic McKean-Vlasov equations we establish exponential convergence of their solutions to stationarity in the total variation metric under Veretennikov-Khasminskii-type conditions.
In this paper, we consider a general class of two-time-scale Markov chains whose transition rate matrix depends on a parameter $λ>0$. We assume that some transition rates of the Markov chain will tend to infinity as $λ\rightarrow\infty$. We divide the state space of the Markov chain $X$ into a fast state space and a slow state space and define a reduced chain $Y$ on the slow state space. Our main result is that the distribution of the original chain $X$ will converge in total variation distance to that of the reduced chain $Y$ uniformly in time $t$ as $λ\rightarrow\infty$.
These are the notes for the minicourse on Markov chains delivered at the Saint Petersburg Summer School, June 2012. The main emphasis is on methods for estimating mixing times (for finite chains) and escape rates (for infinite chains). Lamplighter groups are key examples in both topics and the Varopolous-Carne long range estimate is useful in both settings.
