For , the Markov property and the definition of transition intensity give
Summing over the possible pre-jump states gives the density of the expected Markov-chain entry count:
For a finite-state continuous-time Markov chain, the chance of two or more jumps in this short interval is . There is no contribution: diagonal entries of the infinitesimal generator encode exit rates, not jumps into the same state. With repeated entries possible, this density is an expected event rate rather than the probability density function of a single normalized random time.
A unit-face-value zero-coupon bond pays at maturity. The martingale deflator pricing identity is
Use the affine process Markov property with respect to the market filtration; if that filtration contains extra predictive information, the natural Markov property alone would not suffice. Part (b), with every future coefficient equal to , gives the exponential-affine form. More explicitly, the exponential-affine bond pricing recursion is
Indeed, conditioning the first future step in an -step horizon transforms into . Therefore
This uses the true martingale deflator pricing identity; a merely local martingale deflator would not by itself justify replacing prices by conditional terminal expectations.
Let and . Given , the next value is one of . The martingale property makes its upward and downward conditional probabilities equal; their sum is the conditional variance of the increment, . Thus
The discrete Dupire equation therefore recovers all positive-probability one-step conditional transitions from the European call option price surface. No Markov property is required: these are conditional probabilities given the current value, not necessarily given the whole past.
Recovery is impossible at a zero-probability state. For example, satisfies every stated assumption, but at a different integer can satisfy while . Its conditional transitions can be specified arbitrarily without altering . Thus the literal all-states claim needs the positive-probability qualification.
Use the slotted ALOHA model with one outstanding packet per active station and a collision channel: a slot with exactly one attempt succeeds, whereas an idle slot or a slot with two or more attempts delivers nothing. Let be independent Poisson random variables of mean , independent also of the transmission choices. Arrivals join after the current slot's attempts. Given , the attempt count has a binomial distribution with parameters and . Consequently, for ,
For , set and . The equation adds arrivals and removes precisely one packet following a successful slot. The estimate controls the common transmission probability and updates using the idle, success, or collision feedback. The conditional distribution of the next state depends only on , so this pair is a Markov chain.
Away from the reflecting floor in , its one-step conditional expectations are
When and are large with , the Poisson limit theorem gives and . Treating these approximate drifts as derivatives motivates the fluid approximation of slotted ALOHA:
The floor at is negligible in this interior scaling. This calculation motivates the ordinary differential equations; it is not a proof of a stochastic fluid limit.
For , put
Then and . On the domain , introduce time by . Differentiating gives
where .
The function is strictly increasing from zero to infinity, and . To check the monotonicity explicitly,
Indeed, with ,
because its discriminant is ; and . Thus the scalar ordinary differential equation for points toward the unique value satisfying . Every trajectory with , has bounded and . Positivity of follows from .
If , then and . Thus decays exponentially for large , and
This is finite-time draining of a fluid model. The unmodified equations have undefined at the origin, so the statement that trajectories converge to the origin needs this endpoint interpretation; continuing with an absorbing zero trajectory is an additional fluid-model convention, not a solution of the displayed equations at the origin.
If , then and . Now grows exponentially, physical time tends to infinity, and
In particular the trajectory escapes to infinity. Even without the ratio analysis, , since .
For the actual Markov chain, it is essential not to replace the finite- success probability by : a single backlogged packet can succeed with probability one. Instead, for , maximizing over gives the ALOHA throughput bound
If , choose and so that for all , uniformly in . For sufficiently small ,
because its derivative at zero is . Independence of arrivals and attempts gives
whenever . For any integer , stop at the stopping time . The stopped process is a nonnegative supermartingale. The optional stopping theorem, first at bounded times and then by a limit, yields the exponential-supermartingale escape bound
From every state with , a Poisson distribution arrival burst has a uniformly positive probability of sending the next backlog to at least , for any fixed . From there the probability of never revisiting is at least . By the Markov property at successive visits, the probability of infinitely many visits to this strip is zero: each visit has a uniform positive chance of being the last. This holds for every integer , so
Therefore the Markov chain is transient for every finite choice of . The proof is uniform in and does not infer stochastic transience merely from the approximate ordinary differential equations.
The parameters are , and innovation variance . Stationarity gives , and the Markov property gives . Multiplying the initial density and the transition densities yields the stationary Gaussian AR1 likelihood, with :
The initial-observation factor depends on all three parameters and must be retained for the full stationary likelihood function. Omitting it gives a conditional likelihood given , a different objective.
By the Markov property, all factors in the stationary likelihood function that involve are the transitions from to and from to . Hence conditioning on later observations adds no information once the two neighbors are known. Writing , and , its conditional density is proportional to
The quadratic coefficient of is and the linear coefficient is . Completing the square therefore gives the Gaussian AR1 bridge
Here is the innovation variance, not the marginal stationary variance.
For the finite state space , the generator or Q-matrix is defined by
Its off-diagonal entries are nonnegative jump rates and . The transition semigroup of a continuous-time Markov chain is .
An invariant distribution of a continuous-time Markov chain is a probability row vector satisfying for every . Differentiation at zero gives ; conversely, implies . Thus
Invariant distributions need not be unique: each closed communicating class supports one, and their convex combinations are invariant. A finite irreducible chain has a unique invariant distribution.
Let be the arrival times of the independent rate- Poisson process. The increments are independent exponential variables of rate . Conditional on , the Markov property, time homogeneity, and independence of the next increment give
Hence is a discrete-time Markov chain. Its transition matrix is the Poisson-sampled continuous-time Markov chain resolvent
If , then and integration gives . Conversely, if a probability row vector satisfies , multiplying
on the right by yields . Therefore the sampled chain and the original chain have exactly the same invariant distributions.
For constant coefficients, the density process is a true exponential martingale and defines the risk-neutral measure . Under ,
The minimal value process is therefore
The Markov property and the lognormal transition law make this a deterministic function of , and
Conditional on , the holding time has an exponential distribution of rate , and after that holding time the next state is with transition probability . The memoryless property of exponential random variables and the Markov property of therefore make a continuous-time Markov chain.
Moreover , so . The strong law of large numbers gives almost surely, hence and the process is nonexplosive. Its Q-matrix is
Equivalently, if is the diagonal matrix with entries , then
The process is adapted to its natural filtration. At each fixed time it has finite support and is therefore integrable. Conditional on ,
Conditional on ,
The Markov property now gives
so is a martingale.
Put . The jump chain records the successive states visited by and has transition probabilities
By the exponential holding-time construction, conditional on the current state , the destination of the next jump has this distribution independently of the earlier path. Hence the jump chain has the Markov property.
Condition on the first short time interval. A jump contributes the generator term , while local time grows at unit speed in the current coordinate and contributes . The Markov property and division by the interval length therefore give .
For , the condition from part a becomes
It holds for arbitrary positive time gaps exactly when . The resulting exponential covariance function is the covariance of a stationary Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, hence has the Markov property.
Writing , the predictive law is
As , , so the predictive mean tends to the stationary mean and the predictive variance tends to the stationary variance .
The Markov property and conditioning on the intermediate state give the bridge probability
Substitution from part (i) yields
For , the Strong Markov property at the first step gives the discrete mean-value identity
At , while the same average is at most one. Thus is a bounded superharmonic function on . Conditioning on the natural filtration and using the one-step Markov property gives
Therefore is a nonnegative supermartingale.
Let . By the Markov property,
The events decrease to the event that the walk visits zero infinitely often, which has probability zero by the stated transience assumption. Hence
Part a and the almost sure supermartingale convergence theorem give an almost-sure limit . By Fatou lemma, , so almost surely.
The killed transition operator is
The infinitesimal generator of the diffusion is
The Markov property and the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation give, for each fixed ,
Dividing by , letting , and using the generator definition together with the assumed regularity gives the pointwise Kolmogorov backward equation
The hypotheses imply and , so . Conditional on the negative result at month 1, the likelihood is the probability of remaining in at month 2 and moving to by month 3. The supplied matrix exponential gives
The Markov property therefore gives
The Strong Markov property at the first visit to gives the singleton equilibrium potential from the Green function
Let be an increasing exhaustion of by finite sets containing , and let be the Green function of a transient weighted graph stopped on leaving . Each has finite support. The Green identity and the Markov property give, for ,
By the monotone convergence theorem, the right side tends to zero as , while . Thus is an limit of finitely supported functions. Dividing by the positive number proves .