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Renewal-type behavior of absorption times in Markov chains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2016

Bernard Van Cutsem*
Affiliation:
Institut IMAG
Bernard Ycart*
Affiliation:
Institut IMAG
*
* Postal address: LMC/IMAG B.P. 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France, e-mail: ycart@imag.fr
* Postal address: LMC/IMAG B.P. 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France, e-mail: ycart@imag.fr

Abstract

This paper studies the absorption time of an integer-valued Markov chain with a lower-triangular transition matrix. The main results concern the asymptotic behavior of the absorption time when the starting point tends to infinity (asymptotics of moments and central limit theorem). They are obtained using stochastic comparison for Markov chains and the classical theorems of renewal theory. Applications to the description of large random chains of partitions and large random ordered partitions are given.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1994 

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