Coalescence and Meeting Times on $$n$$ n -Block Markov Chains

Abstract

We consider finite-state, discrete-time, mixing Markov chains \((V,P)\), where \(V\) is the state space and \(P\) is the transition matrix. To each such chain \((V,P)\), we associate a sequence of chains \((V_n,P_n)\) by coding trajectories of \((V,P)\) according to their overlapping \(n\)-blocks. The chain \((V_n,P_n)\), called the \(n\)-block Markov chain associated with \((V,P)\), may be considered an alternate version of \((V,P)\) having memory of length \(n\). Along such a sequence of chains, we characterize the asymptotic behavior of coalescence times and meeting times as \(n\) tends to infinity. In particular, we define an algebraic quantity \(L(V,P)\) depending only on \((V,P)\), and we show that if the coalescence time on \((V_n,P_n)\) is denoted by \(C_n\), then the quantity \(\frac{1}{n} \log C_n\) converges in probability to \(L(V,P)\) with exponential rate. Furthermore, we fully characterize the relationship between \(L(V,P)\) and the entropy of \((V,P)\).