Related papers: Metastability and low lying spectra in reversible …
Large deviation results are given for a class of perturbed nonhomogeneous Markov chains on finite state space which formally includes some stochastic optimization algorithms. Specifically, let {P_n} be a sequence of transition matrices on a…
Input-to-State Stability (ISS) is fundamental in mathematically quantifying how stability degrades in the presence of bounded disturbances. If a system is ISS, its trajectories will remain bounded, and will converge to a neighborhood of an…
We address stability of a class of Markovian discrete-time stochastic hybrid systems. This class of systems is characterized by the state-space of the system being partitioned into a safe or target set and its exterior, and the dynamics of…
In an influential paper, Courtois and Semal (1984) establish that when $G$ is an irreducible substochastic matrix for which $\sum_{n=0}^{\infty}G^n <\infty$, then the stationary distribution of any stochastic matrix $P\ge G$ can be…
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…
In this paper, we are interested in investigating the perturbation bounds for the stationary distributions for discrete-time or continuous-time Markov chains on a countable state space. For discrete-time Markov chains, two new norm-wise…
We consider continuous--time Markov kinetics with a finite number of states and a given positive equilibrium distribution P*. For an arbitrary probability distribution $P$ we study the possible right hand sides, dP/dt, of the Kolmogorov…
An aperiodic and irreducible Markov chain on a finite state space converges to its stationary distribution. When convergence to equilibrium is measured by total variation distance, there exists an optimal coupling and a maximal coupling…
Computational procedures for the stationary probability distribution, the group inverse of the Markovian kernel and the mean first passage times of an irreducible Markov chain, are developed using perturbations. The derivation of these…
We investigate metastability in the two dimensional Ising model in a square with free boundary conditions at low temperatures. Starting with all spins down in a small positive magnetic field, we show that the exit from this metastable phase…
We consider continuous-time Markov chains on integers which allow transitions to adjacent states only, with alternating rates. We give explicit formulas for probability generating functions, and also for means, variances and state…
We study the convergence rate to stationarity for a class of exchangeable partition-valued Markov chains called cut-and-paste chains. The law governing the transitions of a cut-and-paste chain are determined by products of i.i.d. stochastic…
Let $P$ be the transition matrix of a finite, irreducible and reversible Markov chain. We say the continuous time Markov chain $X$ has transition matrix $P$ and speed $\lambda$ if it jumps at rate $\lambda$ according to the matrix $P$. Fix…
Consider a parametric statistical model $P(\mathrm{d}x|\theta)$ and an improper prior distribution $\nu(\mathrm{d}\theta)$ that together yield a (proper) formal posterior distribution $Q(\mathrm{d}\theta|x)$. The prior is called strongly…
A classical problem for Markov chains is determining their stationary (or steady-state) distribution. This problem has an equally classical solution based on eigenvectors and linear equation systems. However, this approach does not scale to…
Metastability is a phenomenon observed in stochastic systems which stay in a false-equilibrium within a region of its state space until the occurrence of a sequence of rare events that leads to an abrupt transition to a different region.…
A discrete-time Markov chain can be transformed into a new Markov chain by looking at its states along iterations of an almost surely finite stopping time. By the optional stopping theorem, any bounded harmonic function with respect to the…
Estimating the entropy based on data is one of the prototypical problems in distribution property testing and estimation. For estimating the Shannon entropy of a distribution on $S$ elements with independent samples, [Paninski2004] showed…
This paper studies the exponential stability of random matrix products driven by a general (possibly unbounded) state space Markov chain. It is a cornerstone in the analysis of stochastic algorithms in machine learning (e.g. for parameter…
We present a learning model predictive control (MPC) scheme for chance-constrained Markov jump systems with unknown switching probabilities. Using samples of the underlying Markov chain, ambiguity sets of transition probabilities are…