Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-options-ii-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2006/n/2/i/solution
Past exam of the options II course of the University of Oxford 2006 N 2 i Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
The state space is . Write . The nonzero transition probabilities areThe stationary equations give and for . Normalization gives , soThe remaining equation is satisfied, confirming stationarity.
The chain is irreducible: every positive state can jump to zero, and zero can reach every state through consecutive immigration steps. A stationary probability distribution makes it positive recurrent. Returns to zero can have lengths two and three with positive probability, so it is also aperiodic. The Markov-chain ergodic theorem now gives the almost-sure long-run time proportion for as the stationary tail:This time-average conclusion applies to the specified start at zero.
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