English

A note on the passage time of finite state Markov chains

Probability 2014-12-09 v4

Abstract

Consider a Markov chain with finite state {0,1,...,d}\{0, 1, ..., d\}. We give the generation functions (or Laplace transforms) of absorbing (passage) time in the following two situations : (1) the absorbing time of state dd when the chain starts from any state ii and absorbing at state dd; (2) the passage time of any state ii when the chain starts from the stationary distribution supposed the chain is time reversible and ergodic. Example shows that it is more convenient compared with the existing methods, especially we can calculate the expectation of the absorbing time directly.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1302.5987,
  title  = {A note on the passage time of finite state Markov chains},
  author = {Wenming Hong and Ke Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.5987},
  year   = {2014}
}