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A discrete-time Markov chain is a sequence of random variables X 1, X 2, X 3, ... with the Markov property, namely that the probability of moving to the next state depends only on the present state and not on the previous states:
An irreducible and aperiodic Markov chain necessarily has a stationary distribution, a probability distribution on its states that describes the probability of being on a given state after many steps, regardless of the initial choice of state. [1] The Markov chain tree theorem considers spanning trees for the states of the Markov chain, defined ...
The mixing time of a Markov chain is the number of steps needed for this convergence to happen, to a suitable degree of accuracy. A family of Markov chains is said to be rapidly mixing if the mixing time is a polynomial function of some size parameter of the Markov chain, and slowly mixing otherwise. This book is about finite Markov chains ...
A game of snakes and ladders or any other game whose moves are determined entirely by dice is a Markov chain, indeed, an absorbing Markov chain. This is in contrast to card games such as blackjack, where the cards represent a 'memory' of the past moves. To see the difference, consider the probability for a certain event in the game.
In 1953 the term Markov chain was used for stochastic processes with discrete or continuous index set, living on a countable or finite state space, see Doob. [1] or Chung. [2] Since the late 20th century it became more popular to consider a Markov chain as a stochastic process with discrete index set, living on a measurable state space. [3] [4] [5]
Consider this figure depicting a section of a Markov chain with states i, j, k and l and the corresponding transition probabilities. Here Kolmogorov's criterion implies that the product of probabilities when traversing through any closed loop must be equal, so the product around the loop i to j to l to k returning to i must be equal to the loop the other way round,
For a continuous time Markov chain (CTMC) with transition rate matrix, if can be found such that for every pair of states and π i q i j = π j q j i {\displaystyle \pi _{i}q_{ij}=\pi _{j}q_{ji}} holds, then by summing over j {\displaystyle j} , the global balance equations are satisfied and π {\displaystyle \pi } is the stationary ...
A semi-Markov process (defined in the above bullet point) in which all the holding times are exponentially distributed is called a continuous-time Markov chain. In other words, if the inter-arrival times are exponentially distributed and if the waiting time in a state and the next state reached are independent, we have a continuous-time Markov ...