We derive sufficient conditions for subgeometric f-ergodicity of strongly Markovian processes. We first propose a criterion based on modulated moment of some delayed return-time to a petite set. We then formulate a criterion for polynomial f-ergodicity in terms of a drift condition on the generator. Applications to specific processes are considered, including Langevin tempered diffusions on R^n and storage models.
In this article, we discuss subgeometric ergodicity of a class of regime-switching diffusion processes. We derive conditions on the drift and diffusion coefficients, and the switching mechanism which result in subgeometric ergodicity of the corresponding semigroup with respect to the total variation distance as well as a class of Wasserstein distances. At the end, subgeometric ergodicity of certain classes of regime-switching Markov processes with jumps is also discussed.
It is well known that stationary geometrically ergodic Markov chains are $β$-mixing (absolutely regular) with geometrically decaying mixing coefficients. Furthermore, for initial distributions other than the stationary one, geometric ergodicity implies $β$-mixing under suitable moment assumptions. In this note we show that similar results hold also for subgeometrically ergodic Markov chains. In particular, for both stationary and other initial distributions, subgeometric ergodicity implies $β$-mixing with subgeometrically decaying mixing coefficients. Although this result is simple it should p…
This paper deals with the ergodicity and the existence of a strong law of large numbers for adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo. We show that a diminishing adaptation assumption together with a drift condition for positive recurrence is enough to imply ergodicity. Strengthening the drift condition to a polynomial drift condition yields a strong law of large numbers for possibly unbounded functions. These results broaden considerably the class of adaptive MCMC algorithms for which rigorous analysis is now possible. As an example, we give a detailed analysis of the Adaptive Metropolis Algorithm of…
In this note, we are concerned with the subgeometric rate of convergence of a Markov chain with discrete time parameter to its invariant measure in the $f$-norm. We clarify how three typical subgeometric rates of convergence are inherited under a discrete time version of Bochner's subordination. The crucial point is to establish the corresponding moment estimates for discrete time subordinators under some reasonable conditions on the underlying Bernstein function.
This paper studies limit theorems for Markov Chains with general state space under conditions which imply subgeometric ergodicity. We obtain a central limit theorem and moderate deviation principles for additive not necessarily bounded functional of the Markov chains under drift and minorization conditions which are weaker than the Foster-Lyapunov conditions. The regeneration-split chain method and a precise control of the modulated moment of the hitting time to small sets are employed in the proof.
In this paper we discuss how the notion of subgeometric ergodicity in Markov chain theory can be exploited to study stationarity and ergodicity of nonlinear time series models. Subgeometric ergodicity means that the transition probability measures converge to the stationary measure at a rate slower than geometric. Specifically, we consider suitably defined higher-order nonlinear autoregressions that behave similarly to a unit root process for large values of the observed series but we place almost no restrictions on their dynamics for moderate values of the observed series. Results on the subg…
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…
We establish subgeometric bounds on convergence rate of general Markov processes in the Wasserstein metric. In the discrete time setting we prove that the Lyapunov drift condition and the existence of a "good" $d$-small set imply subgeometric convergence to the invariant measure. In the continuous time setting we obtain the same convergence rate provided that there exists a "good" $d$-small set and the Douc-Fort-Guillin supermartingale condition holds. As an application of our results, we prove that the Veretennikov-Khasminskii condition is sufficient for subexponential convergence of strong s…
We consider a form of state-dependent drift condition for a general Markov chain, whereby the chain subsampled at some deterministic time satisfies a geometric Foster-Lyapunov condition. We present sufficient criteria for such a drift condition to exist, and use these to partially answer a question posed by Connor & Kendall (2007) concerning the existence of so-called 'tame' Markov chains. Furthermore, we show that our 'subsampled drift condition' implies the existence of finite moments for the return time to a small set.
This paper studies the subgeometric convergence of the stationary distribution in taking the infinite-level limit of a finite-level M/G/1-type Markov chain, that is, in letting the upper boundary level go to infinity. This study is performed through the fundamental deviation matrix, which is a block-decomposition-friendly solution for the Poisson equation of the deviation matrix. The fundamental deviation matrix yields a difference formula for the respective stationary distributions of the finite-level chain and the corresponding infinite-level chain. The difference formula plays a crucial rol…
This paper considers the level-increment (LI) truncation approximation of M/G/1-type Markov chains. The LI truncation approximation is useful for implementing the M/G/1 paradigm, which is the framework for computing the stationary distribution of M/G/1-type Markov chains. The main result of this paper is a subgeometric convergence formula for the total variation distance between the original stationary distribution and its LI truncation approximation. Suppose that the equilibrium level-increment distribution is subexponential, and that the downward transition matrix is rank one. We then show t…
We are interested in the rate of convergence of a subordinate Markov process to its invariant measure. Given a subordinator and the corresponding Bernstein function (Laplace exponent) we characterize the convergence rate of the subordinate Markov process; the key ingredients are the rate of convergence of the original process and the (inverse of the) Bernstein function. At a technical level, the crucial point is to bound three types of moments (sub-exponential, algebraic and logarithmic) for subordinators as time $t$ tends to infinity. At the end we discuss some concrete models and we show tha…
In this paper, we provide sufficient conditions for the existence of the invariant distribution and for subgeometric rates of convergence in Wasserstein distance for general state-space Markov chains which are (possibly) not irreducible. Compared to previous work, our approach is based on a purely probabilistic coupling construction which allows to retrieve rates of convergence matching those previously reported for convergence in total variation. Our results are applied to establish the subgeometric ergodicity in Wasserstein distance of non-linear autoregressive models and of the pre-conditio…
We extend the hypocoercivity framework for piecewise-deterministic Markov process (PDMP) Monte Carlo established in [Andrieu et. al. (2018)] to heavy-tailed target distributions, which exhibit subgeometric rates of convergence to equilibrium. We make use of weak Poincaré inequalities, as developed in the work of [Grothaus and Wang (2019)], the ideas of which we adapt to the PDMPs of interest. On the way we report largely potential-independent approaches to bounding explicitly solutions of the Poisson equation of the Langevin diffusion and its first and second derivatives, required here to cont…
We prove a central limit theorem for a general class of adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms driven by sub-geometrically ergodic Markov kernels. We discuss in detail the special case of stochastic approximation. We use the result to analyze the asymptotic behavior of an adaptive version of the Metropolis Adjusted Langevin algorithm with a heavy tailed target density.
We present Lyapunov-type conditions for non-strong ergodicity of Markov processes. Some concrete models are discussed including diffusion processes on Riemannian manifolds and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes driven by symmetric $α$-stable processes. For SDE driven by $α$-stable process ($α\in (0,2]$) with polynomial drift, the strong ergodicity or not is independent on $α$.
The Laplace transform of partial sums of the square of a non-centered Gauss-Markov process, conditioning on its starting point, is explicitly computed. The parameters of multiplicative ergodicity are deduced.
Ergodicity is a fundamental issue for a stochastic process. In this paper, we refine results on ergodicity for a general type of Markov chain to a specific type or the $GI/G/1$-type Markov chain, which has many interesting and important applications in various areas. It is of interest to obtain conditions in terms of system parameters or the given information about the process, under which the chain has various ergodic properties. Specifically, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for geometric, strong and polynomial ergodicity, respectively.
We consider a time inhomogeneous strong Markov process $(ξ_t)_{t\ge 0}$ taking values in a Polish state space whose semigroup has a $T$-periodic structure. We give simple conditions which imply ergodicity of the grid chain $(ξ_{kT})_{k\in \mathbb{N}_0}$ In case of $d$-dimensional possibly degenerate diffusions, the conditions are stated in terms of drift and diffusion coefficient of the process.
We prove the convergence at an exponential rate towards the invariant probability measure for a class of solutions of stochastic differential equations with finite delay. This is done, in this non-Markovian setting, using the cluster expansion method, inspired from [4] or [14]. As a consequence, the results hold for small perturbations of ergodic diffusions.
We study properties of the Laplace transforms of non-negative additive functionals of Markov chains. We are namely interested in a multiplicative ergodicity property used in [18] to study bifurcating processes with ancestral dependence. We develop a general approach based on the use of the operator perturbation method. We apply our general results to two examples of Markov chains, including a linear autoregressive model. In these two examples the operator-type assumptions reduce to some expected finite moment conditions on the functional (no exponential moment conditions are assumed in this wo…
We study perturbation theory and uniform ergodicity for discrete-time Markov chains on general state spaces in terms of the uniform moments of the first hitting times on some set. The methods we adopt are different from previous ones. For reversible and non-negative definite Markov chains, we first investigate the geometrically ergodic convergence rates. Based on the estimates, together with a first passage formula, we then get the convergence rates in uniform ergodicity. If the transition kernel $P$ is only reversible, we transfer to study the two-skeleton chain with the transition kernel $P^…
Generalization of the Lorden's inequality is an excellent tool for obtaining strong upper bounds for the convergence rate for various complicated stochastic models. This paper demonstrates a method for obtaining such bounds for some generalization of the Markov modulated Poisson process (MMPP). The proposed method can be applied to reliability and queuing theory.
We are interested in quasi-stationarity and quasi-ergodicity when the absorbing boundary is moving. First we show that, in the moving boundary case, the quasi-stationary distribution and the quasi-limiting distribution are not well-defined when the boundary is oscillating periodically. Then we show the existence of a quasi-ergodic distribution for any discrete-time irreducible Markov chain defined on a finite space state in the fixed boundary case. Finally we use this last result to show the quasi-ergodicity in the moving boundary case.
In this paper we prove a sharp quantitative version of the Kendall's Theorem. The Kendal Theorem states that under some mild conditions imposed on a probability distribution on positive integers (i.e. probabilistic sequence) one can prove convergence of its renewal sequence. Due to the well-known property - the first entrance last exit decomposition - such results are of interest in the stability theory of time homogeneous Markov chains. In particular the approach may be used to measure rates of convergence of geometrically ergodic Markov chains and consequently implies estimates on convergenc…
Max-stable processes are central models for spatial extremes. In this paper, we focus on some space-time max-stable models introduced in Embrechts et al. (2016). The processes considered induce discrete-time Markov chains taking values in the space of continuous functions from the unit sphere of $\mathbb{R}^3$ to $(0, \infty)$. We show that these Markov chains are geometrically ergodic. An interesting feature lies in the fact that the state space is not locally compact, making the classical methodology inapplicable. Instead, we use the fact that the state space is Polish and apply results pres…
We are interested in the dynamic of a structured branching population where the trait of each individual moves according to a Markov process. The rate of division of each individual is a function of its trait and when a branching event occurs, the trait of a descendant at birth depends on the trait of the mother. We prove a law of large numbers for the empirical distribution of ancestral trajectories. It ensures that the empirical measure converges to the mean value of the spine which is a time-inhomogeneous Markov process describing the trait of a typical individual along its ancestral lineag…
We study the exponential growth of bifurcating processes with ancestral dependence. We suppose here that the lifetimes of the cells are dependent random variables, that the numbers of new cells are random and dependent. Lifetimes and new cells's numbers are also assumed to be dependent. We illustrate our results by examples, including some Markov models. Our approach is related to the behaviour of the Laplace transform of nonnegative additive functional of Markov chains and require weak moment assumption (no exponential moment is needed).
In this work, we consider an inhomogeneous (discrete time) Markov chain and are interested in its long time behavior. We provide sufficient conditions to ensure that some of its asymptotic properties can be related to the ones of a homogeneous (continuous time) Markov process. Renowned examples such as a bandit algorithms, weighted random walks or decreasing step Euler schemes are included in our framework. Our results are related to functional limit theorems, but the approach differs from the standard "Tightness/Identification" argument; our method is unified and based on the notion of pseudo…
Asymptotic behavior of the three-dimensional stochastic Navier-Stokes equations with Markov switching in additive noises is studied for incompressible fluid flow in a bounded domain in the three-dimensional space. To study such a system, we introduce a family of regularized equations and investigate the asymptotic behavior of the regularized equations first. The existence an ergodic measure for the regularized system is established via the Krylov-Bogolyubov method. Then the existence of an stationary measure to the original system is obtained by extracting a limit from the ergodic measures of …
Let $P$ be a Markov kernel on a measurable space $\X$ and let $V:\X\r[1,+\infty)$. This paper provides explicit connections between the $V$-geometric ergodicity of $P$ and that of finite-rank nonnegative sub-Markov kernels $\Pc_k$ approximating $P$. A special attention is paid to obtain an efficient way to specify the convergence rate for $P$ from that of $\Pc_k$ and conversely. Furthermore, explicit bounds are obtained for the total variation distance between the $P$-invariant probability measure and the $\Pc_k$-invariant positive measure. The proofs are based on the Keller-Liverani perturbat…
We establish quantitative bounds for rates of convergence and asymptotic variances for iterated conditional sequential Monte Carlo (i-cSMC) Markov chains and associated particle Gibbs samplers. Our main findings are that the essential boundedness of potential functions associated with the i-cSMC algorithm provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the uniform ergodicity of the i-cSMC Markov chain, as well as quantitative bounds on its (uniformly geometric) rate of convergence. Furthermore, we show that the i-cSMC Markov chain cannot even be geometrically ergodic if this essential boundedn…
This paper studies the f-ergodicity and its exponential convergence rate for continuous-time Markov chain. Assume f is square integrable, for reversible Markov chain, it is proved that the exponential convergence of f-ergodicity holds if and only if the spectral gap of the generator is positive. Moreover, the convergence rate is equal to the spectral gap. For irreversible case, the positivity of spectral gap remains a sufficient condition of f-ergodicity. The effectiveness of these results are illustrated by some typical examples.
We study ergodic properties of a class of Markov-modulated general birth-death processes under fast regime switching. The first set of results concerns the ergodic properties of the properly scaled joint Markov process with a parameter that is taken large. Under very weak hypotheses, we show that if the averaged process is exponentially ergodic for large values of the parameter, then the same applies to the original joint Markov process. The second set of results concerns steady-state diffusion approximations, under the assumption that the 'averaged' fluid limit exists. Here, we establish conv…
Let $P$ be a Markov kernel on a measurable space $\X$ and let $V:\X\r[1,+\infty)$. We provide various assumptions, based on drift conditions, under which $P$ is quasi-compact on the weighted-supremum Banach space $(\cB_V,\|\cdot\|_V)$ of all the measurable functions $f : \X\r\C$ such that $\|f\|_V := \sup_{x\in \X} |f(x)|/V(x) < \infty$. Furthermore we give bounds for the essential spectral radius of $P$. Under additional assumptions, these results allow us to derive the convergence rate of $P$ on $\cB_V$, that is the geometric rate of convergence of the iterates $P^n$ to the stationary distri…
The goal of this paper is to develop a general method to establish conditional ergodicity of infinite-dimensional Markov chains. Given a Markov chain in a product space, we aim to understand the ergodic properties of its conditional distributions given one of the components. Such questions play a fundamental role in the ergodic theory of nonlinear filters. In the setting of Harris chains, conditional ergodicity has been established under general nondegeneracy assumptions. Unfortunately, Markov chains in infinite-dimensional state spaces are rarely amenable to the classical theory of Harris cha…
We formulate a criterion for the existence and uniqueness of an invariant measure for a Markov process taking values in a Polish phase space. In addition, weak-$^*$ ergodicity, that is, the weak convergence of the ergodic averages of the laws of the process starting from any initial distribution, is established. The principal assumptions are the existence of a lower bound for the ergodic averages of the transition probability function and its local uniform continuity. The latter is called the e-property. The general result is applied to solutions of some stochastic evolution equations in Hilbe…
We study the ergodic behaviour of a discrete-time process $X$ which is a Markov chain in a stationary random environment. The laws of $X_t$ are shown to converge to a limiting law in (weighted) total variation distance as $t\to\infty$. Convergence speed is estimated and an ergodic theorem is established for functionals of $X$. Our hypotheses on $X$ combine the standard "small set" and "drift" conditions for geometrically ergodic Markov chains with conditions on the growth rate of a certain "maximal process" of the random environment. We are able to cover a wide range of models that have hereto…
We consider a bivariate stationary Markov chain $(X_n,Y_n)_{n\ge0}$ in a Polish state space, where only the process $(Y_n)_{n\ge0}$ is presumed to be observable. The goal of this paper is to investigate the ergodic theory and stability properties of the measure-valued process $(Π_n)_{n\ge0}$, where $Π_n$ is the conditional distribution of $X_n$ given $Y_0,...,Y_n$. We show that the ergodic and stability properties of $(Π_n)_{n\ge0}$ are inherited from the ergodicity of the unobserved process $(X_n)_{n\ge0}$ provided that the Markov chain $(X_n,Y_n)_{n\ge0}$ is nondegenerate, that is, its trans…
Generally the convergence rate in exponential ergodicity $λ$ is an upper bound for the convergence rate $κ$ in uniform ergodicity for a Markov process, that is $λ\geqslantκ$. In this paper, we prove that $κ\geqslant \inf \{lambda,1/M_H\}$, where $M_H$ is a uniform bound on the moment of the hitting time to a "compact" set $H$. In the case where $M_H$ can be made arbitrarily small for $H$ large enough, we obtain that $λ=κ$. The general results are applied to Markov chains, diffusion processes and solutions to SDEs driven by symmetric stable processes.
We study a crystal growth Markov model proposed by Gates and Westcott (\cite{Kinetics1}, \cite{Kinetics2}). This is an aggregation process where particles are packed in a square lattice accordingly to prescribed deposition rates. This model is parametrized by three values $(β_i, i=0,1,2)$ corresponding to depositions on three different types of sites. The main problem is to determine, for the shape of the crystal, when recurrence and when ergodicity do occur. In \cite{AMS} and \cite{MarkovModels} sufficient conditions are given both for ergodicity and transience. We establish some improved con…
We establish verifiable general sufficient conditions for exponential or subexponential ergodicity of Markov processes that may lack the strong Feller property. We apply the obtained results to show exponential ergodicity of a variety of nonlinear stochastic partial differential equations with additive forcing, including 2D stochastic Navier-Stokes equations. Our main tool is a new version of the generalized coupling method.
We develop an effective strategy for proving strong ergodicity of (nonsymmetric) Markov semigroups associated to Hörmander type generators when the underlying configuration space is infinite dimensional.
We study the limit behaviour of upper and lower bounds on expected time averages in imprecise Markov chains; a generalised type of Markov chain where the local dynamics, traditionally characterised by transition probabilities, are now represented by sets of `plausible' transition probabilities. Our first main result is a necessary and sufficient condition under which these upper and lower bounds, called upper and lower expected time averages, will converge as time progresses towards infinity to limit values that do not depend on the process' initial state. Our condition is considerably weaker …
In the present paper we investigate the $L_1$-weak ergodicity of nonhomogeneous discrete Markov processes with general state spaces. Note that the $L_1$-weak ergodicity is weaker than well-known weak ergodicity. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for such processes to satisfy the $L_1$-weak ergodicity. Moreover, we apply the obtained results to establish $L_1$-weak ergodicity of discrete time quadratic stochastic processes. As an application of the main result, certain concrete examples are also provided.
In this article, we discuss ergodicity properties of a diffusion process given through an Itô stochastic differential equation. We identify conditions on the drift and diffusion coefficients which result in sub-geometric ergodicity of the corresponding semigroup with respect to the total variation distance. We also prove sub-geometric contractivity and ergodicity of the semigroup under a class of Wasserstein distances. Finally, we discuss sub-geometric ergodicity of two classes of Markov processes with jumps.
We consider the generalization of the Pólya urn scheme with possibly infinite many colors as introduced in \cite{Th-Thesis, BaTH2014, BaTh2016, BaTh2017}. For countable many colors, we prove almost sure convergence of the urn configuration under \emph{uniform ergodicity} assumption on the associated Markov chain. The proof uses a stochastic coupling of the sequence of chosen colors with a \emph{branching Markov chain} on a weighted \emph{random recursive tree} as described in \cite{BaTh2017, Sv_2018}. Using this coupling we estimate the covariance between any two selected colors. In particular…
Using elementary methods, we prove that for a countable Markov chain $P$ of ergodic degree $d > 0$ the rate of convergence towards the stationary distribution is subgeometric of order $n^{-d}$, provided the initial distribution satisfies certain conditions of asymptotic decay. An example, modelling a renewal process and providing a markovian approximation scheme in dynamical system theory, is worked out in detail, illustrating the relationships between convergence behaviour, analytic properties of the generating functions associated to transition probabilities and spectral properties of the Ma…
This paper contains two parts. In the first part, we study the ergodicity of periodic measures of random dynamical systems on a separable Banach space. We obtain that the periodic measure of the continuous time skew-product dynamical system generated by a random periodic path is ergodic if and only if the underlying noise metric dynamical system at discrete time of integral multiples of the period is ergodic. For the Markov random dynamical system case, we prove that the periodic measure of a Markov semigroup is PS-ergodic if and only if the trace of the random periodic path at integral multip…
The Bouncy Particle Sampler (BPS) is a Monte Carlo Markov Chain algorithm to sample from a target density known up to a multiplicative constant. This method is based on a kinetic piecewise deterministic Markov process for which the target measure is invariant. This paper deals with theoretical properties of BPS. First, we establish geometric ergodicity of the associated semi-group under weaker conditions than in [10] both on the target distribution and the velocity probability distribution. This result is based on a new coupling of the process which gives a quantitative minorization condition …
Consider a Markov process $\{Φ(t) : t\geq 0\}$ evolving on a Polish space ${\sf X}$. A version of the $f$-Norm Ergodic Theorem is obtained: Suppose that the process is $ψ$-irreducible and aperiodic. For a given function $f\colon{\sf X}:\to[1,\infty)$, under suitable conditions on the process the following are equivalent: \begin{enumerate} \item[(i)] There is a unique invariant probability measure $π$ satisfying $\int f\,dπ<\infty$. \item[(ii)] There is a closed set $C$ satisfying $ψ(C)>0$ that is ``self $f$-regular.'' \item There is a function $V\colon{\sf X} \to (0,\infty]$ that is finite on …
