A path decomposition at the infimum for positive self-similar Markov processes (pssMp) is obtained. Next, several aspects of the conditioning to hit 0 of a pssMp are studied. Associated to a given a pssMp $X,$ that never hits 0, we construct a pssMp $X^{\downarrow}$ that hits 0 in a finite time. The latter can be viewed as $X$ conditioned to hit 0 in a finite time and we prove that this conditioning is determined by the pre-minimum part of $X.$ Finally, we provide a method for conditioning a pssMp that hits 0 by a jump to do it continuously.
We describe a new construction of a family of measures on a group with the same Poisson boundary. Our approach is based on applying Markov stopping times to an extension of the original random walk.
This paper considers discretization of the Lévy process appearing in the Lamperti representation of a strictly positive self-similar Markov process. Limit theorems for the resulting approximation are established under some regularity assumptions on the given Lévy process. Additionally, the scaling limit of a positive self-similar Markov process at small times is provided. Finally, we present an application to simulation of self-similar Lévy processes conditioned to stay positive.
A discrete-time Markov chain can be transformed into a new Markov chain by looking at its states along iterations of an almost surely finite stopping time. By the optional stopping theorem, any bounded harmonic function with respect to the transition function of the original chain is harmonic with respect to the transition function of the transformed chain. The reverse inclusion is in general not true. Our main result provides a sufficient condition on the stopping time which guarantees that the space of bounded harmonic functions for the transformed chain embeds in the space of bounded harmon…
We establish integral tests and laws of the iterated logarithm for the lower envelope of positive self-similar Markov processes at 0 and $+\infty$. Our proofs are based on the Lamperti representation and time reversal arguments. These results extend laws of the iterated logarithm for Bessel processes due to Dvoretsky and Erdös, Motoo and Rivero.
We establish integral tests and laws of the iterated logarithm for the upper envelope of the future infimum of positive self-similar Markov processes and for increasing self-similar Markov processes at 0 and infinity. Our proofs are based on the Lamperti representation and time reversal arguments due to Chaumont and Pardo [9]. These results extend laws of the iterated logarithm for the future infimum of Bessel processes due to Khoshnevisan et al. [11].
We establish integral tests and laws of the iterated logarithm at 0 and at $+\infty$, for the upper envelope of positive self-similar Markov processes. Our arguments are based on the Lamperti representation, time reversal arguments and on the study of the upper envelope of their future infimum due to Pardo \cite{Pa}. These results extend integral test and laws of the iterated logarithm for Bessel processes due to Dvoretsky and Erdös \cite{de} and stable Lévy processes conditioned to stay positive with no positive jumps due to Bertoin \cite{be1}.
The aim of this note is to give a straightforward proof of a general version of the Ciesielski-Taylor identity for positive self-similar Markov processes of the spectrally negative type which umbrellas all previously known Ciesielski-Taylor identities within the latter class. The approach makes use of three fundamental features. Firstly a new transformation which maps a subset of the family of Laplace exponents of spectrally negative Lévy processes into itself. Secondly some classical features of fluctuation theory for spectrally negative Lévy processes as well as more recent fluctuation ident…
This paper addresses the question of predicting when a positive self-similar Markov process X attains its pathwise global supremum or infimum before hitting zero for the first time (if it does at all). This problem has been studied in Glover et al. (2013) under the assumption that X is a positive transient diffusion. We extend their result to the class of positive self-similar Markov processes by establishing a link to Baurdoux and van Schaik (2013), where the same question is studied for a Levy process drifting to minus infinity. The connection to Baurdoux and van Schaik (2013) relies on the …
We study positive recurrence and transience of a two-station network in which the behavior of the server in each station is governed by a Markov chain with a finite number of server states; this service process can represent various service disciplines such as a non-preemptive priority service and K-limited service. Assuming that exogenous customers arrive according to independent Markovian arrival processes (MAPs), we represent the behavior of the whole network as a continuous-time Markov chain and, by the uniformization technique, obtain the corresponding discrete-time Markov chain, which is…
We present a new approach to positive self-similar Markov processes (pssMps) by reformulating Lamperti's transformation via jump type SDEs. As applications, we give direct constructions of pssMps (re)started continuously at zero if the Lamperti transformed Levy process is spectrally negative. Our paper can be seen as a continuation of similar studies for continuous state branching processes but the approach seems to be more fruitful in the context of pssMps.
A systematic exposition of scale functions is given for positive self-similar Markov processes (pssMp) with one-sided jumps. The scale functions express as convolution series of the usual scale functions associated with spectrally one-sided Lévy processes that underly the pssMp through the Lamperti transform. This theory is then brought to bear on solving the spatio-temporal: (i) two-sided exit problem; (ii) joint first passage problem upwards for the the pssMp and its multiplicative drawdown (resp. drawup) in the spectrally negative (resp. positive) case.
We are interested in the asymptotic behavior of Markov chains on the set of positive integers for which, loosely speaking, large jumps are rare and occur at a rate that behaves like a negative power of the current state, and such that small positive and negative steps of the chain roughly compensate each other. If $X_{n}$ is such a Markov chain started at $n$, we establish a limit theorem for $\frac{1}{n}X_{n}$ appropriately scaled in time, where the scaling limit is given by a nonnegative self-similar Markov process. We also study the asymptotic behavior of the time needed by $X_{n}$ to reach…
We aim at an explicit characterization of the renormalized Hamiltonian after decimation transformation of a one-dimensional Ising-type Hamiltonian with a nearest-neighbor interaction and a magnetic field term. To facilitate a deeper understanding of the decimation effect, we translate the renormalization flow on the Ising Hamiltonian into a flow on the associated Markov chains through the Markov-Gibbs equivalence. Two different methods are used to verify the well-known conjecture that the eigenvalues of the linearization of this renormalization transformation about the fixed point bear importa…
Consider the real Markov walk $S_n = X_1+ \dots+ X_n$ with increments $\left(X_n\right)_{n\geq 1}$ defined by a stochastic recursion starting at $X_0=x$. For a starting point $y>0$ denote by $τ_y$ the exit time of the process $\left( y+S_n \right)_{n\geq 1}$ from the positive part of the real line. We investigate the asymptotic behaviour of the probability of the event $τ_y \geq n$ and of the conditional law of $y+S_n$ given $τ_y \geq n$ as $n \to +\infty$.
Consider a Markov chain $(X_n)_{n\geqslant 0}$ with values in the state space $\mathbb X$. Let $f$ be a real function on $\mathbb X$ and set $S_0=0,$ $S_n = f(X_1)+\cdots + f(X_n),$ $n\geqslant 1$. Let $\mathbb P_x$ be the probability measure generated by the Markov chain starting at $X_0=x$. For a starting point $y \in \mathbb R$ denote by $τ_y$ the first moment when the Markov walk $(y+S_n)_{n\geqslant 1}$ becomes non-positive. Under the condition that $S_n$ has zero drift, we find the asymptotics of the probability $\mathbb P_x ( τ_y >n )$ and of the conditional law $\mathbb P_x ( y+S_n\leq…
For a spectrally negative positive self-similar Markov process with an a.s. finite overall supremum we provide, in tractable detail, a kind of conditional Wiener-Hopf factorization at the maximum of the absorption time at zero, the conditioning being on the overall supremum and the jump at the overall supremum. In a companion result the Laplace transform of said absorption time (on the event that the process does not go above a given level) is identified under no other assumptions (such as the process admitting a recurrent extension and/or hitting zero continuously), generalizing some existent…
We study Girsanov's theorem in the context of symmetric Markov processes, extending earlier work of Fukushima-Takeda and Fitzsimmons on Girsanov transformations of ``gradient type.'' We investigate the most general Girsanov transformation leading to another symmetric Markov process. This investigation requires an extension of the forward-backward martingale method of Lyons-Zheng, to cover the case of processes with jumps.
We show that any $\mathbb{R}^d\setminus\{0\}$-valued self-similar Markov process $X$, with index $α>0$ can be represented as a path transformation of some Markov additive process (MAP) $(θ,ξ)$ in $S_{d-1}\times\mathbb{R}$. This result extends the well known Lamperti transformation. Let us denote by $\widehat{X}$ the self-similar Markov process which is obtained from the MAP $(θ,-ξ)$ through this extended Lamperti transformation. Then we prove that $\widehat{X}$ is in weak duality with $X$, with respect to the measure $π(x/\|x\|)\|x\|^{α-d}dx$, if and only if $(θ,ξ)$ is reversible with respect …
In this paper we propose an alternative construction of the self-similar entrance laws for positive self-similar Markov processes. The study of entrance laws has been carried out in previous papers using different techniques, depending on whether the process hits zero in a finite time almost surely or not. The technique here used allows to obtain the entrance laws in a unified way. Besides, we show that in the case where the process hits zero in a finite time, if there exists a self-similar entrance law, then there are infinitely many, but they can all be embedded into a single one. We propose…
Using Lamperti's relationship between Lévy processes and positive self-similar Markov processes (pssMp), we study the weak convergence of the law $\mathbb{P}_x$ of a pssMp starting at $x>0$, in the Skorohod space of càdlàg paths, when $x$ tends to 0. To do so, we first give conditions which allow us to construct a càdlàg Markov process $X^{(0)}$, starting from 0, which stays positive and verifies the scaling property. Then we establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the laws $\mathbb{P}_x$ to converge weakly to the law of $X^{(0)}$ as $x$ goes to 0. In particular, this answers a quest…
This paper generalizes the work of Kendall [Electron. Comm. Probab. 9 (2004) 140--151], which showed that perfect simulation, in the form of dominated coupling from the past, is always possible (although not necessarily practical) for geometrically ergodic Markov chains. Here, we consider the more general situation of positive recurrent chains and explore when it is possible to produce such a simulation algorithm for these chains. We introduce a class of chains which we name tame, for which we show that perfect simulation is possible.
We study a multivariate Markov chain on the symmetric group with remarkable enumerative properties. We conjecture that the stationary distribution of this Markov chain can be expressed in terms of positive sums of Schubert polynomials. This Markov chain is a multivariate generalization of a Markov chain introduced by the first author in the study of random affine Weyl group elements.
We consider some special classes of Lévy processes with no gaussian component whose Lévy measure is of the type $π(dx)=e^{γx}ν(e^x-1) dx$, where $ν$ is the density of the stable Lévy measure and $γ$ is a positive parameter which depends on its characteristics. These processes were introduced in \cite{CC} as the underlying Lévy processes in the Lamperti representation of conditioned stable Lévy processes. In this paper, we compute explicitly the law of these Lévy processes at their first exit time from a finite or semi-finite interval, the law of their exponential functional and the first hitti…
We are interested by the rate of growth of increasing positive self-similar Markov processes (ipssMp) such that the subordinator associated to it via Lamperti's transformation has infinite mean. We prove that the logarithm of an ipssMp normalized by the logarithm of the time converges weakly, as the time tends to infinity, if and only if the Laplace exponent of the underlying subordinator is regularly varying at zero. Moreover, we prove that the regular variation at zero of the Laplace exponent is essentially nasc for the existence of a function that normalizes the logarithm of an ipssMp. We o…
We propose a new classification scheme for diffusion processes for which the backward Kolmogorov equation is solvable in analytically closed form by reduction to hypergeometric equations of the Gaussian or confluent type. The construction makes use of transformations of diffusion processes to eliminate the drift which combine a measure change given by Doob's h-transform and a diffeomorphism. Such transformations have the important property of preserving analytic solvability of the process: the transition probability density for the driftless process can be expressed through the transition prob…
We state and prove a generalized adiabatic theorem for Markov chains and provide examples and applications related to Glauber dynamics of Ising model over Z^d/nZ^d. The theorems derived in this paper describe a type of adiabatic dynamics for l^1(R_+^n) norm preserving, time inhomogeneous Markov transformations, while quantum adiabatic theorems deal with l^2(C^n) norm preserving ones, i.e. gradually changing unitary dynamics in C^n.
We start by providing an explicit characterization and analytical properties, including the persistence phenomena, of the distribution of the extinction time $\mathbb{T}$ of a class of non-Markovian self-similar stochastic processes with two-sided jumps that we introduce as a stochastic time-change of Markovian self-similar processes. For a suitably chosen time-changed, we observe, for classes with two-sided jumps, the following surprising facts. On the one hand, all the $\mathbb{T}$'s within a class have the same law which we identify in a simple form for all classes and reduces, in the spect…
Suppose $X$ is a right process which is associated with a non-symmetric Dirichlet form $(\mathcal{E},D(\mathcal{E}))$ on $L^{2}(E;m)$. For $u\in D(\mathcal{E})$, we have Fukushima's decomposition: $\tilde{u}(X_{t})-\tilde{u}(X_{0})=M^{u}_{t}+N^{u}_{t}$. In this paper, we investigate the strong continuity of the generalized Feynman-Kac semigroup defined by $P^{u}_{t}f(x)=E_{x}[e^{N^{u}_{t}}f(X_{t})]$. Let $Q^{u}(f,g)=\mathcal{E}(f,g)+\mathcal{E}(u,fg)$ for $f,g\in D(\mathcal{E})_{b}$. Denote by $J_1$ the dissymmetric part of the jumping measure $J$ of $(\mathcal{E},D(\mathcal{E}))$. Under the a…
Let X be a spectrally negative self-similar Markov process with 0 as an absorbing state. In this paper, we show that the distribution of the absorption time is absolutely continuous with an infinitely continuously differentiable density. We provide a power series and a contour integral representation of this density. Then, by means of probabilistic arguments, we deduce some interesting analytical properties satisfied by these functions, which include, for instance, several types of hypergeometric functions. We also give several characterizations of the Kesten's constant appearing in the study …
A simple model of the new notion of "Markov up" processes is proposed; its positive recurrence and ergodic properties are shown under the appropriate conditions.
Let $Z_α$ be a positive $α-$stable random variable and $r\in{\bf R}.$ We show the existence of an unbounded open domain $D$ in $[1/2,1]\times{\bf R}$ with a cusp at $(1/2,-1/2)$, characterized by the complete monotonicity of the function $F_{α, r} (λ) = (αλ^α-r)e^{-λ^α}/!/! ,$ such that $Z_α^r$ is unimodal if and only if $(α, r)\notin D.$
Monotone Lévy processes with additive increments are defined and studied. It is shown that these processes have a natural Markov structure and their Markov transition semigroups are characterized using the monotone Lévy-Khintchine formula. Monotone Lévy processes turn out to be related to classical Lévy processes via Attal's ``remarkable transformation.'' A monotone analogue of the family of exponential martingales associated to a classical Lévy process is also defined.
For a positive self-similar Markov process, X, we construct a local time for the random set, $Θ$, of times where the process reaches its past supremum. Using this local time we describe an exit system for the excursions of X out of its past supremum. Next, we define and study the ladder process (R,H) associated to a positive self-similar Markov process X, namely a bivariate Markov process with a scaling property whose coordinates are the right inverse of the local time of the random set $Θ$ and the process X sampled on the local time scale. The process (R,H) is described in terms of a ladder p…
The coarse Ricci curvature for Markov chains is generalized for continuous time. We show that a positive coarse Ricci curvature implies a contraction of the Markov process for the Wasserstein distance between probability measures. This leads to a spectral gap estimate in the reversible case.
We give necessary and sufficient conditions for laws of large numbers to hold in $L^2$ for the empirical measure of a large class of branching Markov processes, including $λ$-positive systems but also some $λ$-transient ones, such as the branching Brownian motion with drift and absorption at $0$. This is a significant improvement over previous results on this matter, which had only dealt so far with $λ$-positive systems. Our approach is purely probabilistic and is based on spinal decompositions and many-to-few lemmas. In addition, we characterize when the limit in question is always strictly p…
The running infimum of a Levy process relative to its point of issue is know to have the same range that of the negative of a certain subordinator. Conditioning a Levy process issued from a strictly positive value to stay positive may therefore be seen as implicitly conditioning its descending ladder heigh subordinator to remain in a strip. Motivated by this observation, we consider the general problem of conditioning a subordinator to remain in a strip. Thereafter we consider more general contexts in which subordinators embedded in the path decompositions of Markov processes are conditioned t…
In this paper, for $α\in (1, 2}$ we show that the $α$-stable continuous-state branching process and the associated process conditioned never to become extinct are positive self-similar Markov processes. Understanding the interaction of the Lamperti transformation for continuous-state branching processes and the Lamperti transformation for positive self-similar Markov processes permits accessto a number of explicit results concerning the paths of stable-continuous branching processes and its conditioned version.
We consider a Markov chain on the space of (countable) partitions of the interval [0,1], obtained first by size biased sampling twice (allowing repetitions) and then merging the parts (if the sampled parts are distinct) or splitting the part uniformly (if the same part was sampled twice). We prove a conjecture of Vershik stating that the Poisson-Dirichlet law with parameter theta=1 is the unique invariant distribution for this Markov chain. Our proof uses a combination of probabilistic, combinatoric, and representation-theoretic arguments.
We prove existence of boundary limits of ratios of positive harmonic functions for a wide class of Markov processes with jumps and irregular domains, in the context of general metric measure spaces. As a corollary, we prove uniqueness of the Martin kernel at each boundary point, that is, we identify the Martin boundary with the topological boundary. We also prove a Martin representation theorem for harmonic functions. Examples covered by our results include: strictly stable Lévy processes in R^d with positive continuous density of the Lévy measure; stable-like processes in R^d and in domains; …
Let $ξ_1$, $ξ_2,\ldots$ be i.i.d. random variables of zero mean and finite variance and $η_1$, $η_2,\ldots$ positive i.i.d. random variables whose distribution belongs to the domain of attraction of an $α$-stable distribution, $α\in (0,1)$. The two collections are assumed independent. We consider a Markov chain with jumps of two types. If the present position of the Markov chain is positive, then the jump $ξ_k$ occurs; if the present position of the Markov chain is nonpositive, then its next position is $η_j$. We prove a functional limit theorem for this Markov chain under Donsker's scaling. T…
We introduce the notion of order of magnitude reversibility (OM-reversibility) in Markov chains that are parametrized by a positive parameter $\ep$. OM-reversibility is a weaker condition than reversibility, and requires only the knowledge of order of magnitude of the transition probabilities. For an irreducible, OM-reversible Markov chain on a finite state space, we prove that the stationary distribution satisfies order of magnitude detailed balance (analog of detailed balance in reversible Markov chains). The result characterizes the states with positive probability in the limit of the stati…
We consider stochastic partial differential equations appearing as Markovian lifts of matrix valued (affine) Volterra type processes from the point of view of the generalized Feller property (see e.g., \cite{doetei:10}). We introduce in particular Volterra Wishart processes with fractional kernels and values in the cone of positive semidefinite matrices. They are constructed from matrix products of infinite dimensional Ornstein Uhlenbeck processes whose state space are matrix valued measures. Parallel to that we also consider positive definite Volterra pure jump processes, giving rise to multi…
We show how to insert time into the parameters of the Wilson's 6-j laws to construct discrete Markov chains with these laws. By a quadratic transformation we convert them into Markov processes with linear regressions and quadratic conditional variances. Further conversion into the "standard form" gives "quadratic harnesses" with "classical" value of parameter gamma. A random-parameter-representation of the original Markov chain allows us to stitch together two copies of the process, extending time domain of the quadratic harness from (0,1) to all t>0.
Consider the continuous-time Markov Branching Process. In critical case we consider a situation when the generating function of intensity of transformation of particles has the infinite second moment, but its tail regularly varies in sense of Karamata. First we discuss limit properties of transition functions of the process. We prove local limit theorems and investigate ergodic properties of the process. Further we investigate limiting probability function conditioned to be never extinct. Hereupon we obtain a new stochastic population process as a continuous-time Markov chain called the Markov…
In this note we identify the distributional limits of non-negative, ergodic stationary processes, showing that all are possible. Consequences for infinite ergodic theory are also explored and new examples of distributionally stable- and $α$-rationally ergodic tranformations are presented.
We propose a penalized pseudo-likelihood criterion to estimate the graph of conditional dependencies in a discrete Markov random field that can be partially observed. We prove the convergence of the estimator in the case of a finite or countable infinite set of nodes. In the finite case, the underlying graph can be recovered with probability one, while in the countable infinite case, we can recover any finite sub-graph with probability one by allowing the candidate neighborhoods to grow as a function o(log n), with n the sample size. Our method requires minimal assumptions on the probability d…
