Variational formulas for asymptotic variance of general discrete-time Markov chains

Abstract

The asymptotic variance is an important criterion to evaluate the performance of Markov chains, especially for the central limit theorems. We give the variational formulas for the asymptotic variance of discrete-time (non-reversible) Markov chains on general state space. The variational formulas provide many applications, extending the classical Peskun’s comparison theorem to non-reversible Markov chains, and obtaining several comparison theorems between Markov chains with various perturbations.