Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2010/ii/paper-4/26i/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2010 ii Paper 4 26I c Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
When , an excursion after the jump from zero to one visits before its reset with probabilityThis tends to zero, so a catastrophe eventually occurs with probability one. Both the original chain and its jump chain are recurrent.
The expected number of jumps in a return cycle isThus the jump chain is null recurrent. But its holding time at has mean , and the initial holding time at zero has mean . The expected elapsed cycle time isThe continuous-time Markov chain is therefore positive recurrent. Its equilibrium distribution, computed as mean time in a state per mean cycle time, isThe entries sum to one by telescoping. The contrast is explained by progressively shorter holding times at the large states, not by a change in return probabilities.
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