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Information Processing Letters
Volume 97, Issue 2, 31 January 2006, Pages 58-63
 
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doi:10.1016/j.ipl.2005.09.011    How to Cite or Link Using DOI (Opens New Window)
Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A note on the attractor-property of infinite-state Markov chains

Christel Baiera, E-mail The Corresponding Author, Nathalie Bertrandb, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Philippe Schnoebelenb, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author

aUniversität Bonn, Institut für Informatik I, Germany bLab. Specification & Verification, CNRS UMR 8643 & ENS de Cachan, France

Received 27 April 2005; 
revised 3 September 2005; 
accepted 29 September 2005. 
Communicated by D. Basin. 
Available online 27 October 2005.

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Abstract

In the past 5 years, a series of verification algorithms has been proposed for infinite Markov chains that have a finite attractor, i.e., a set that will be visited infinitely often almost surely starting from any state. In this paper, we establish a sufficient criterion for the existence of an attractor. We show that if the states of a Markov chain can be given levels (positive integers) such that the expected next level for states at some level n>0 is less than nΔ for some positive Δ, then the states at level 0 constitute an attractor for the chain. As an application, we obtain a direct proof that some probabilistic channel systems combining message losses with duplication and insertion errors have a finite attractor.

Keywords: Theory of computation; Attractors in Markov chains; Verification of probabilistic systems; Lossy channel systems


 
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