On the use of periodicity properties for the efficient numerical solution of certain Markov chains

Abstract

AbstractMarkov chains with periodic graphs arise frequently in a wide range of modelling experiments. Application areas range from flexible manufacturing systems in which pallets are treated in a cyclic manner to computer communication networks. The primary goal of this paper is to show how advantage may be taken of this property to reduce the amount of computer memory and computation time needed to compute stationary probability vectors of periodic Markov chains. After reviewing some basic properties of Markov chains whose associated graph is periodic, we introduce a ‘reduced scheme’ in which only a subset of the probability vector need be computed. We consider the effect of the application of both direct and iterative methods to the original Markov chain (permuted to normal periodic form) as well as to the reduced system. We show how the periodicity of the Markov chain may be efficiently computed as the chain itself is being generated. Finally, some numerical experiments to illustrate the theory, are presented.