English

Random walks maximizing the probability to visit an interval

Probability 2013-05-30 v1

Abstract

We consider random walks, say Wn=(M0,M1,,Mn)W_n=(M_0, M_1,\dots, M_n), of length nn starting at 0 and based on the martingale sequence MkM_k with differences Xm=MmMm1X_m=M_m-M_{m-1}. Assuming that the differences are bounded, Xm1|X_m|\leq 1, we solve the problem \begin{equation} D_n(x)\=\sup P \left\{W_n \ \text{visits an interval}\ [x,\infty)\right\},\qquad x\in R, \label{piirma} \end{equation} where sup\sup is taken over all possible WnW_n. In particular, we describe random walks which maximize the probability in \eqrefpiirma\eqref{piirma}. We also extend the result to super-martingales.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1305.6735,
  title  = {Random walks maximizing the probability to visit an interval},
  author = {Dainius Dzindzalieta},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1305.6735},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

14 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T00:24:24.508Z