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Self-intersections of random walks on discrete groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David J. Aldous
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, U.S.A.

Extract

For a random walk on a finite group, the distribution after n steps will converge, as n→∞, to the uniform distribution (under mild conditions). The asymptotic behaviour of such walks can be studied easily using standard Markov chain theory. But there are many natural problems about the non-asymptotic behaviour which have no simple solution in general. For example, what is

the time until a specified element is first visited?

the time until all element have been visited?

the time until the distribution approaches the uniform distribution?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 1985

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References

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