Regenerative stochastic processes
- 11 October 1955
- journal article
- Published by The Royal Society in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
- Vol. 232 (1188) , 6-31
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.1955.0198
Abstract
A wide class of stochastic processes, called regenerative, is defined, and it is shown that under general conditions the instantaneous probability distribution of such a process tends with time to a unique limiting distribution, whatever the initial conditions. The general results are then applied to 'S.M.-processes', a generalization of Markov chains, and it is shown that the limiting distribution of the process may always be obtained by assuming negative-exponential distributions for the 'waits' in the different 'states'. Lastly, the behaviour of integrals of regenerative processes is considered and, amongst other results, an ergodic and a multi-dimensional central limit theorem are proved.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Large-sample theory of sequential estimationMathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1952
- On an Equation of WaldThe Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 1946