Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2026/iii/paper-226/1/b/i/solution

The displayed identity is false with the printed non-strict inequality. For example, take and let . The event says that the walk returns to at most once, so its left side is , whereas its right side is .
The standard and evidently intended last-exit decomposition for a transient random walk has . Decompose that corrected event according to and . The Strong Markov property at time gives
Reversibility of the random walk on a graph gives the path-reversal identity
Since is the equilibrium measure of a finite set, summing first over and then over yields
Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.

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