Related papers: Drift, Minorization, and Hitting Times

Hitting times provide a fundamental measure of distance in random processes, quantifying the expected number of steps for a random walk starting at node $u$ to reach node $v$. They have broad applications across domains such as network…

The paper studies an improved estimate for the rate of convergence for nonlinear homogeneous discrete-time Markov chains. These processes are nonlinear in terms of the distribution law. Hence, the transition kernels are dependent on the…

In this article, we prove that a small random perturbation of dynamical system with multiple stable equilibria converges to a Markov chain whose states are neighborhoods of the deepest stable equilibria, under a suitable time-rescaling,…

Drift analysis is one of the state-of-the-art techniques for the runtime analysis of randomized search heuristics (RSHs) such as evolutionary algorithms (EAs), simulated annealing etc. The vast majority of existing drift theorems yield…

We prove the existence of limiting distributions for a large class of Markov chains on a general state space in a random environment. We assume suitable versions of the standard drift and minorization conditions. In particular, the system…

We present a novel algorithm to solve a non-linear system of equations, whose solution can be interpreted as a tight lower bound on the vector of expected hitting times of a Markov chain whose transition probabilities are only partially…

The hitting and mixing times are two fundamental quantities associated with Markov chains. In Peres and Sousi[PS2015] and Oliveira[Oli2012], the authors show that the mixing times and "worst-case" hitting times of reversible Markov chains…

The use of heuristics to assess the convergence and compress the output of Markov chain Monte Carlo can be sub-optimal in terms of the empirical approximations that are produced. Typically a number of the initial states are attributed to…

In this paper, we give quantitative bounds on the $f$-total variation distance from convergence of an Harris recurrent Markov chain on an arbitrary under drift and minorisation conditions implying ergodicity at a sub-geometric rate. These…

We present a framework for obtaining explicit bounds on the rate of convergence to equilibrium of a Markov chain on a general state space, with respect to both total variation and Wasserstein distances. For Wasserstein bounds, our main tool…

We consider an ordinary differential equation with a unique hyperbolic attractor at the origin, to which we add a small random perturbation. It is known that under general conditions, the solution of this stochastic differential equation…

The influence of node mobility on the convergence time of averaging gossip algorithms in networks is studied. It is shown that a small number of fully mobile nodes can yield a significant decrease in convergence time. A method is developed…

We study a new technique for the asymptotic analysis of heavy-tailed systems conditioned on large deviations events. We illustrate our approach in the context of ruin events of multidimensional regularly varying random walks. Our approach…

In this paper we study the drifted Brownian meander, that is a Brownian motion starting from $ u $ and subject to the condition that $ \min_{ 0\leq z \leq t} B(z)> v $ with $ u > v $. The limiting process for $ u \downarrow v $ is analyzed…

We consider the problem of finding the transition rates of a continuous-time homogeneous Markov chain under the empirical condition that the state changes at most once during a time interval of unit length. It is proven that this…

One-shot coupling is a method of bounding the convergence rate between two copies of a Markov chain in total variation distance, which was first introduced by Roberts and Rosenthal and generalized by Madras and Sezer. The method is divided…

To avoid poor empirical performance in Metropolis-Hastings and other accept-reject-based algorithms practitioners often tune them by trial and error. Lower bounds on the convergence rate are developed in both total variation and Wasserstein…

In this paper, we give an overview of mean drift conditions for the state-space classification of discrete-time Markov Chains and we present a new transience criterion for uniformly bounded Markov Chains with asymptotically zero drift. The…

We propose a new approach for estimating the finite dimensional transition matrix of a Markov chain using a large number of independent sample paths observed at random times. The sample paths may be observed as few as two times, and the…

Lifted Markov chains are Markov chains on graphs with added local "memory" and can be used to mix towards a target distribution faster than their memoryless counterparts. Upper and lower bounds on the achievable performance have been…