English

Corrected diffusion approximation for random walks conditioned to stay positive

Probability 2026-02-23 v1

Abstract

Let SnS_n be a random walk with i.i.d. increments which have zero mean and finite variance. For every x0x\ge0 we define the stopping time τx:=inf{n1:x+Sn0}\tau_x:=\inf\{n\ge1:x+S_n\le0\} and consider the probabilities P(x+Sny,τx>n)\mathbb{P}(x+S_n\ge y,\tau_x>n). We study the quality of the normal approximation for these probabilities and derive a Berry-Esseen-type inequality for P(x+Snyτx>n)\mathbb{P}(x+S_n\ge y|\tau_x>n). Our Theorem 1 is an extension of the results in our previous paper (arXiv:2412.08502) where we have considered the special case x=0x=0. It is also worth mentioning that Theorem 1 complements the results of Siegmund and Yuh (1982) on the corrected diffusion approximation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.18120,
  title  = {Corrected diffusion approximation for random walks conditioned to stay positive},
  author = {Denis Denisov and Alexander Tarasov and Vitali Wachtel},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.18120},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

22 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:44:02.548Z