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Example of a stopping time: a hitting time of Brownian motion.The process starts at 0 and is stopped as soon as it hits 1. In probability theory, in particular in the study of stochastic processes, a stopping time (also Markov time, Markov moment, optional stopping time or optional time [1]) is a specific type of “random time”: a random variable whose value is interpreted as the time at ...
The term strong Markov property is similar to the Markov property, except that the meaning of "present" is defined in terms of a random variable known as a stopping time. The term Markov assumption is used to describe a model where the Markov property is assumed to hold, such as a hidden Markov model .
Markov chains and continuous-time Markov processes are useful in chemistry when physical systems closely approximate the Markov property. For example, imagine a large number n of molecules in solution in state A, each of which can undergo a chemical reaction to state B with a certain average rate. Perhaps the molecule is an enzyme, and the ...
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 ...
In probability theory, the mixing time of a Markov chain is the time until the Markov chain is "close" to its steady state distribution.. More precisely, a fundamental result about Markov chains is that a finite state irreducible aperiodic chain has a unique stationary distribution π and, regardless of the initial state, the time-t distribution of the chain converges to π as t tends to infinity.
In a Markov chain, state depends only on the previous state in time, whereas in a Markov random field, each state depends on its neighbors in any of multiple directions. A Markov random field may be visualized as a field or graph of random variables, where the distribution of each random variable depends on the neighboring variables with which ...
Another discrete-time process that may be derived from a continuous-time Markov chain is a δ-skeleton—the (discrete-time) Markov chain formed by observing X(t) at intervals of δ units of time. The random variables X (0), X (δ), X (2δ), ... give the sequence of states visited by the δ-skeleton.
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.