Rational arrival processes with strictly positive densities need not be Markovian
Abstract
Telek (2022) asked whether a rational arrival process (RAP), specified by matrices and and an initial row vector , with strictly positive joint densities and a unique dominant real eigenvalue of must admit an equivalent Markovian arrival process (MAP). A counterexample of order is given, showing the answer is no, and that the conjecture fails even under the stronger condition of exact normalisation . The construction combines a strictly positive exponential baseline with a two-dimensional correction driven by an irrational rotation. Strict positivity of all joint densities follows from the continuous-time damping of the correction block; the obstruction to MAP realisability comes from the poles of the boundary generating function at , which cannot be peripheral eigenvalues of any finite nonnegative matrix when is irrational.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.28047,
title = {Rational arrival processes with strictly positive densities need not be Markovian},
author = {Oscar Peralta},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.28047},
year = {2026}
}