Related papers: Correct Approximation of Stationary Distributions
The evolution of a continuous time Markov process with a finite number of states is usually calculated by the Master equation - a linear differential equations with a singular generator matrix. We derive a general method for reducing the…
Exact results for product-form stationary distributions of Markov chains are of interest in different fields. In stochastic reaction networks (CRNs), stationary distributions are mostly known in special cases where they are of product-form.…
A random walk on a directed graph gives a Markov chain on the vertices of the graph. An important question that arises often in the context of Markov chain is whether the uniform distribution on the vertices of the graph is a stationary…
We consider a general method for the approximation of the distribution of a process conditioned to not hit a given set. Existing methods are based on particle system that are failable, in the sense that, in many situations , they are not…
Many economic models feature monotone Markov dynamics on state spaces that may be noncompact. Establishing existence, uniqueness, and stability of stationary distributions in such settings has required a patchwork of sufficient conditions,…
The Markov Chain Monte Carlo method is at the heart of efficient approximation schemes for a wide range of problems in combinatorial enumeration and statistical physics. It is therefore very natural and important to determine whether…
The parameters of a discrete stationary Markov model are transition probabilities between states. Traditionally, data consist in sequences of observed states for a given number of individuals over the whole observation period. In such a…
Lyapunov functions are fundamental to establishing the stability of Markovian models, yet their construction typically demands substantial creativity and analytical effort. In this paper, we show that deep learning can automate this process…
We consider reversible ergodic Markov chains with finite state space, and we introduce a new notion of quasi-stationary distribution that does not require the presence of any absorbing state. In our setting, the hitting time of the…
Approximating the stationary probability of a state in a Markov chain through Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques is, in general, inefficient. Standard random walk approaches require $\tilde{O}(\tau/\pi(v))$ operations to approximate the…
An important problem in the implementation of Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms is to determine the convergence time, or the number of iterations before the chain is close to stationarity. For many Markov chains used in practice this time…
A wide class of ``counting'' problems have been studied in Computer Science. Three typical examples are the estimation of - (i) the permanent of an $n\times n$ 0-1 matrix, (ii) the partition function of certain $n-$ particle Statistical…
Dealing with unichain MDPs, we consider stationary distributions of policies that coincide in all but $n$ states. In these states each policy chooses one of two possible actions. We show that the stationary distributions of n+1 such…
This paper offers a personal review of some things we've learned about rates of convergence of Markov chains to their stationary distributions. The main topic is ways of speeding up diffusive behavior. It also points to open problems and…
Markov chains are convenient means of generating realizations of networks with a given (joint or otherwise) degree distribution, since they simply require a procedure for rewiring edges. The major challenge is to find the right number of…
We give computable bounds on the rate of convergence of the transition probabilities to the stationary distribution for a certain class of geometrically ergodic Markov chains. Our results are different from earlier estimates of Meyn and…
We study the approximation of a Markov chain on a reduced state space, for both discrete- and continuous-time Markov chains. In this context, we extend the existing theory of formal error bounds for the approximated transient distributions.…
The goal of this paper is to analyze distributional Markov Decision Processes as a class of control problems in which the objective is to learn policies that steer the distribution of a cumulative reward toward a prescribed target law,…
The paper proposes a new aggregation method, based on the Arnoldi iteration, for computing approximate transient distributions of Markov chains. This aggregation is not partition-based, which means that an aggregate state may represent any…
An irreducible stochastic matrix with rational entries has a stationary distribution given by a vector of rational numbers. We give an upper bound on the lowest common denominator of the entries of this vector. Bounds of this kind are used…