Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/iii/paper-215/2/c/solution

Take and start from the lower endpoint. The stationary distribution of this birth-death chain satisfies detailed balance with
so it is concentrated within of the upper endpoint . Before reaching that region the walk has drift . The weak law of large numbers and exponential concentration therefore imply that its hitting time of is
At time the chain is still macroscopically below the stationary region with probability tending to one, so its total-variation distance tends to one. Under the monotone coupling from part (b), by time the extremal copies have coalesced with probability tending to one, so the distance tends to zero. Therefore the family has

New to topics? Read the docs here!