Perturbation analysis for continuous-time Markov chains in a weak sense

Abstract

Abstract By the technique of augmented truncations, we obtain the perturbation bounds on the distance of the finite-time state distributions of two continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) in a type of weaker norm than the V-norm. We derive the estimates for strongly and exponentially ergodic CTMCs. In particular, we apply these results to get the bounds for CTMCs satisfying Doeblin or stochastically monotone conditions. Some examples are presented to illustrate the limitation of the V-norm in perturbation analysis and to show the quality of the weak norm.