Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-probability-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2017/3/a/iii/solution

For an irreducible Markov chain on a countable state space, the set has either zero or one element. By uniqueness of stationary distributions for an irreducible countable chain, a stationary probability distribution exists exactly in the positive recurrent case, and then
for the first return time . The right-hand side fixes every entry, proving uniqueness.
For a finite state space, existence is guaranteed, so there is exactly one. A countably infinite state space can have none: the simple symmetric random walk on the integers is irreducible and null recurrent. Periodicity does not affect this existence-and-uniqueness statement.

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