Research lectures, seminars and events

The events listed in this area are research seminars, workshops and lectures hosted by Durham University departments and research institutes. If you are not a member of the University, but  wish to enquire about attending one of the events please contact the organiser or host department.

Statistics Seminars: Hitting large sets

Given any irreducible discrete-time Markov chain on a finite state space, consider the largest expected hitting time $T(\alpha)$ of a set of stationary measure at least $\alpha$, $0 < \alpha < 1$. We describe tight relationships between $T(\alpha)$ and $T(\beta)$ for different choices of $\alpha$ and $\beta$. In particular, using an ergodic argument we show that, if $\alpha < 1/2$, then $T(\alpha) \leT(1/2)/\alpha$. A corollary is that, if the chain is reversible, $T(1/2)$ is equivalent to total variation mixing time of the chain, answering a question of Peres.

This is joint work with Simon Griffiths (IMPA), Roberto Oliveira (IMPA) and Viresh Patel (Durham).

Contact i.r.vernon@durham.ac.uk or i.h.jermyn@durham.ac.uk for more information