Advanced Lectures in Mathematics: With Special Emphasis on Rapid Mixing

Behrends, Ehrhard

The aims of this book are threefold:
We start with a naive description of a Markov chain as a memoryless random walk on a finite set. This is complemented by a rigorous definition in the framework of probability theory, and then we develop the most important results from the theory of homogeneous Markov chains on finite state spaces.
Chains are called rapidly mixing if all of the associated walks, regardles of where they started, behave similarly already after comparitively few steps: it is impossible from observing the chain to get information on the starting position or the number of steps done so far. We will thoroughly study methods which have been proposed in the last decades to investigate this phenomenon.
A number of examples will be studied to indicate how the methods treated in this book can be applied.

Details

Published by: Vieweg+Teubner Verlag

Publication Date: 1999-11-29

Format: Paperback

ISBN-13: 9783528069865

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-322-90157-6

Dimensions: 254cm x178cm

Pages: 234