Paper 1, Section II, J

Applied Probability
Part II, 2016

(a) Define a continuous-time Markov chain XX with infinitesimal generator QQ and jump chain YY.

(b) Prove that if a state xx is transient for YY, then it is transient for XX.

(c) Prove or provide a counterexample to the following: if xx is positive recurrent for XX, then it is positive recurrent for YY.

(d) Consider the continuous-time Markov chain (Xt)t0\left(X_{t}\right)_{t \geqslant 0} on Z\mathbb{Z} with non-zero transition rates given by

q(i,i+1)=23i,q(i,i)=3i+1 and q(i,i1)=3iq(i, i+1)=2 \cdot 3^{|i|}, \quad q(i, i)=-3^{|i|+1} \quad \text { and } \quad q(i, i-1)=3^{|i|}

Determine whether XX is transient or recurrent. Let T0=inf{tJ1:Xt=0}T_{0}=\inf \left\{t \geqslant J_{1}: X_{t}=0\right\}, where J1J_{1} is the first jump time. Does XX have an invariant distribution? Justify your answer. Calculate E0[T0]\mathbb{E}_{0}\left[T_{0}\right].

(e) Let XX be a continuous-time random walk on Zd\mathbb{Z}^{d} with q(x)=xα1q(x)=\|x\|^{\alpha} \wedge 1 and q(x,y)=q(x)/(2d)q(x, y)=q(x) /(2 d) for all yZdy \in \mathbb{Z}^{d} with yx=1\|y-x\|=1. Determine for which values of α\alpha the walk is transient and for which it is recurrent. In the recurrent case, determine the range of α\alpha for which it is also positive recurrent. [Here x\|x\| denotes the Euclidean norm of xx.]