course |
course_year |
question_number |
tags |
title |
year |
Markov Chains |
IB |
41 |
|
Paper 3 , Section I, H |
2021 |
Consider a Markov chain $\left(X_{n}\right)_{n \geqslant 0}$ on a state space $I$.
(a) Define the notion of a communicating class. What does it mean for a communicating class to be closed?
(b) Taking $I={1, \ldots, 6}$, find the communicating classes associated with the transition matrix $P$ given by
$$P=\left(\begin{array}{cccccc}
0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & \frac{1}{4} & \frac{3}{4} \\
\frac{1}{4} & 0 & 0 & 0 & \frac{1}{2} & \frac{1}{4} \\
0 & \frac{1}{2} & 0 & \frac{1}{2} & 0 & 0 \\
0 & \frac{1}{2} & 0 & 0 & \frac{1}{2} & 0 \\
\frac{1}{4} & \frac{1}{2} & 0 & 0 & 0 & \frac{1}{4} \\
1 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0 & 0
\end{array}\right)$$
and identify which are closed.
(c) Find the expected time for the Markov chain with transition matrix $P$ above to reach 6 starting from 1 .