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Asymptotics for randomly reinforced urns with random barriers

Probability 2015-08-27 v1 Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

An urn contains black and red balls. Let ZnZ_n be the proportion of black balls at time nn and 0L<U10\leq L<U\leq 1 random barriers. At each time nn, a ball bnb_n is drawn. If bnb_n is black and Zn1<UZ_{n-1}<U, then bnb_n is replaced together with a random number BnB_n of black balls. If bnb_n is red and Zn1>LZ_{n-1}>L, then bnb_n is replaced together with a random number RnR_n of red balls. Otherwise, no additional balls are added, and bnb_n alone is replaced. In this paper, we assume Rn=BnR_n=B_n. Then, under mild conditions, it is shown that Zna.s.ZZ_n\overset{a.s.}\longrightarrow Z for some random variable ZZ, and \begin{gather*} D_n:=\sqrt{n}\,(Z_n-Z)\longrightarrow\mathcal{N}(0,\sigma^2)\quad\text{conditionally a.s.} \end{gather*} where σ2\sigma^2 is a certain random variance. Almost sure conditional convergence means that \begin{gather*} P\bigl(D_n\in\cdot\mid\mathcal{G}_n\bigr)\overset{weakly}\longrightarrow\mathcal{N}(0,\,\sigma^2)\quad\text{a.s.} \end{gather*} where P(DnGn)P\bigl(D_n\in\cdot\mid\mathcal{G}_n\bigr) is a regular version of the conditional distribution of DnD_n given the past Gn\mathcal{G}_n. Thus, in particular, one obtains DnN(0,σ2)D_n\longrightarrow\mathcal{N}(0,\sigma^2) stably. It is also shown that L<Z<UL<Z<U a.s. and ZZ has non-atomic distribution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1508.06550,
  title  = {Asymptotics for randomly reinforced urns with random barriers},
  author = {Patrizia Berti and Irene Crimaldi and Luca Pratelli and Pietro Rigo},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.06550},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

13 pages, submitted

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:42:07.039Z