Random vicious walks and random matrices

A lock step walk is a one‐dimensional integer lattice walk in discrete time. Suppose that initially there are infinitely many walkers on the nonnegative even integer sites. At each moment of time, every walker moves either to its left or to its right with equal probability. The only constraint is that no two walkers can occupy the same site at the same time. Hence we describe the walk as vicious. It is proved that as time tends to infinity, a certain limiting conditional distribution of the displacement of the leftmost walker is identical to the limiting distribution of the (scaled) largest eigenvalue of a random GOE matrix (GOE Tracy‐Widom distribution). The proof is based on the bijection between path configurations and semistandard Young tableaux established recently by Guttmann, Owczarek, and Viennot. The distribution of semistandard Young tableaux is analyzed using the Hankel determinant expression for the probability obtained from the work of Rains and the author. The asymptotics of the Hankel determinant are then obtained by applying the Deift‐Zhou steepest‐descent method to the Riemann‐Hilbert problem for the related orthogonal polynomials. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Unified Orbital Description of the Envelope Dynamics in Two‐Dimensional Simple Periodic Lattices

The propagation of wave envelopes in two‐dimensional (2‐D) simple periodic lattices is studied. A discrete approximation, known as the tight‐binding (TB) approximation, is employed to find the equations governing a class of nonlinear discrete envelopes in simple 2‐D periodic lattices. Instead of using Wannier function analysis, the orbital approximation of Bloch modes that has been widely used in the physical literature, is employed. With this approximation the Bloch envelope dynamics associated with both simple and degenerate bands are readily studied. The governing equations are found to be discrete nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS)‐type equations or coupled NLS‐type systems. The coefficients of the linear part of the equations are related to the linear dispersion relation. When the envelopes vary slowly, the continuous limit of the general discrete NLS equations are effective NLS equations in moving frames. These continuous NLS equations (from discrete to continuous) also agree with those derived via a direct multiscale expansion. Rectangular and triangular lattices are examples.     

Painlevé transcendents and the Hankel determinants generated by a discontinuous Gaussian weight

This paper studies the Hankel determinants generated by a discontinuous Gaussian weight with one and two jumps. It is an extension in a previous study, in which they studied the discontinuous Gaussian weight with a single jump. By using the ladder operator approach, we obtain a series of difference and differential equations to describe the Hankel determinant for the single jump case. These equations include the Chazy II equation, continuous and discrete Painlevé IV. In addition, we consider the large n behavior of the corresponding orthogonal polynomials and prove that they satisfy the biconfluent Heun equation. We also consider the jump at the edge under a double scaling, from which a Painlevé XXXIV appeared. Furthermore, we study the Gaussian weight with two jumps and show that a quantity related to the Hankel determinant satisfies a two variables' generalization of the Jimbo‐Miwa‐Okamoto σ‐form of the Painlevé IV.     

Correlation functions of the XX Heisenberg magnet and random walks of vicious walkers

We investigate a relation between random walks on a one-dimensional periodic lattice and correlation functions of the XX Heisenberg spin chain. Operator averages over the ferromagnetic state play the role of generating functions of the number of paths traveled by so-called vicious random walkers (vicious walkers annihilate each other if they arrive at the same lattice site). We show that the two-point correlation function of spins calculated over eigenstates of the XX magnet can be interpreted as the generating function of paths traveled by a single walker in a medium characterized by a variable number of vicious neighbors. We obtain answers for the number of paths traveled by the described walker from a fixed lattice site to a sufficiently remote site. We provide asymptotic estimates of the number of paths in the limit of a large number of steps. __________ Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 159, No. 2, pp. 179–193, May, 2009.     

Discrete Moving Frames on Lattice Varieties and Lattice-Based Multispaces

In this paper, we develop the theory of the discrete moving frame in two different ways. In the first half of the paper, we consider a discrete moving frame defined on a lattice variety and the equivalence classes of global syzygies that result from the first fundamental group of the variety. In the second half, we consider the continuum limit of discrete moving frames as a local lattice coalesces to a point. To achieve a well-defined limit of discrete frames, we construct multispace, a generalisation of the jet bundle that also generalises Olver’s one-dimensional construction. Using interpolation to provide coordinates, we prove that it is a manifold containing the usual jet bundle as a submanifold. We show that continuity of a multispace moving frame ensures that the discrete moving frame converges to a continuous one as lattices coalesce. The smooth frame is, at the same time, the restriction of the multispace frame to the embedded jet bundle. We prove further that the discrete invariants and syzygies approximate their smooth counterparts. In effect, a frame on multispace allows smooth frames and their discretisations to be studied simultaneously. In our last chapter we discuss two important applications, one to the discrete variational calculus, and the second to discrete integrable systems. Finally, in an appendix, we discuss a more general result concerning equicontinuous families of discretisations of moving frames, which are consistent with a smooth frame.     

Discrete and continuous coupled nonlinear integrable systems via the dressing method

A discrete analog of the dressing method is presented and used to derive integrable nonlinear evolution equations, including two infinite families of novel continuous and discrete coupled integrable systems of equations of nonlinear Schrödinger type. First, a demonstration is given of how discrete nonlinear integrable equations can be derived starting from their linear counterparts. Then, starting from two uncoupled, discrete one‐directional linear wave equations, an appropriate matrix Riemann‐Hilbert problem is constructed, and a discrete matrix nonlinear Schrödinger system of equations is derived, together with its Lax pair. The corresponding compatible vector reductions admitted by these systems are also discussed, as well as their continuum limits. Finally, by increasing the size of the problem, three‐component discrete and continuous integrable discrete systems are derived, as well as their generalizations to systems with an arbitrary number of components.     

Pricing of general European options on discrete dividend-paying assets with jump-diffusion dynamics

Stocks regularly pay dividends at discrete intervals of time while statistical evidence indicates the existence of small “jumps” in the stock price dynamics. In this paper, we find closed-form solutions for the valuation of European options when the underlying asset is modeled by a jump-diffusion process and pays discrete or continuous dividends. The formula is very general and can be used with any specification on the distribution of the jump. Moreover, the formula is written in terms of the Black–Scholes formula with no jumps or dividends and thus indicates the effect of the jumps and the effect of the inclusion of discrete (or continuous) dividends on the price of the option.     

A fluid model with upward jumps at the boundary

We consider a single buffer fluid system in which the instantaneous rate of change of the fluid is determined by the current state of a background stochastic process called “environment”. When the fluid level hits zero, it instantaneously jumps to a predetermined positive level q. At the jump epoch the environment state can undergo an instantaneous transition. Between two consecutive jumps of the fluid level the environment process behaves like a continuous time Markov chain (CTMC) with finite state space. We develop methods to compute the limiting distribution of the bivariate process (buffer level, environment state). We also study a special case where the environment state does not change when the fluid level jumps. In this case we present a stochastic decomposition property which says that in steady state the buffer content is the sum of two independent random variables: one is uniform over [0,q], and the other is the steady-state buffer content in a standard fluid model without jumps.      

Upper bounds for ruin probabilities in two dependent risk models under rates of interest

In this article, we consider two discrete‐time risk models, in which dependent structures of the payments and the interest force are considered. Two autoregressive moving‐average (ARMA) models are introduced to model the premiums and rates of interest, and the claims are assumed to be independent. Generalized Lundberg inequalities for the ruin probabilities are derived by using renewal recursive technique, which extend some known results. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gaussian quasimartingales

Summary Necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of the mean function and covariance are obtained for a separable Gaussian process to have paths of bounded variation, absolutely continuous or continuous singular. If almost all paths are of bounded variation, the L ² expansion of the Gaussian process is shown to converge in the total variation norm. One then obtains a decomposition of the paths of a Gaussian quasimartingale into a martingale and a predictable process of bounded variation paths such that these components are jointly Gaussian; the martingale component is decomposed into two processes, one consisting of (fixed) jumps and the other a continuous path martingale, and the bounded variation component is decomposed into three processes, one consisting of (fixed) jumps, another with absolutely continuous paths and the third with continuous singular paths. All components are jointly Gaussian. Uniqueness of the decompositions is also established.This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation.     

Regularity of Harmonic Functions for Some Markov Chains with Unbounded Range

We consider a class of continuous time Markov chains on ? ^d . These chains are the discrete space analogue of Markov processes with jumps. Under some conditions, as we show, harmonic functions associated with these Markov chains are Hölder continuous.     

On weak interaction between a ground state and a non-trapping potential

We show that ground states of the NLS moving at nonzero speed are asymptotically stable if they either stay far from the potential, or the potential is small, or the ground state has large speed. We search an effective Hamiltonian using the Birkhoff normal forms argument in [11], treating the potential as a perturbation. The so-called Fermi Golden Rule, which is used to describe the decay to 0 of the internal discrete modes of the ground state, is similar to that in [12]. The continuous modes dispersion requires the theory in [40] on charge transfer models.     

Functional estimation for Lévy measures of semimartingales with Poissonian jumps

We consider semimartingales with jumps that have finite Lévy measures. The purpose of this article is to estimate integral-type functionals of the Lévy measures from discrete observations. We propose two types of estimators: kernel-type and empirical-type estimators, both of which are obtained by direct discretization from asymptotically efficient estimators of the target based on continuous observations. We show the asymptotic efficiency in the asymptotic minimax sense of our estimators as the sample size tends to infinity and the sampling interval tends to zero.     

Viscosity Characterization of the Value Function of an Investment-Consumption Problem in Presence of an Illiquid Asset

We study a problem of optimal investment/consumption over an infinite horizon in a market consisting of a liquid and an illiquid asset. The liquid asset is observed and can be traded continuously, while the illiquid one can only be traded and observed at discrete random times corresponding to the jumps of a Poisson process. The problem is a nonstandard mixed discrete/continuous optimal control problem, which we face by the dynamic programming approach. The main goal of the paper is the characterization of the value function as unique viscosity solution of an associated Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equation. We then use such a result to build a numerical algorithm, allowing one to approximate the value function and so to measure the cost of illiquidity.     

Infinite Horizon Reflected Backward SDEs with Jumps and RCLL Obstacle

Abstract

In this article, we deal with the one-dimensional reflected backward stochastic differential equation with one or two barriers for infinite horizon when the noise is driven by a Brownian motion and an independent Poisson point process. The reflecting process is right continuous with left limits whose jumps are whatever. The authors prove existence and uniqueness of the solution by using a method based on a combination of penalization and the Snell envelope theory. Once more we use a contraction to show the result in the general framework.     

Spitzer’s identity for discrete random walks

Spitzer’s identity describes the position of a reflected random walk over time in terms of a bivariate transform. Among its many applications in probability theory are congestion levels in queues and random walkers in physics. We present a derivation of Spitzer’s identity for random walks with bounded jumps to the left, only using basic properties of analytic functions and contour integration. The main novelty is a reversed approach that recognizes a factored polynomial expression as the outcome of Cauchy’s formula.     

Zero-Sum Differential Games Involving Hybrid Controls

We study a zero-sum differential game with hybrid controls in which both players are allowed to use continuous as well as discrete controls. Discrete controls act on the system at a given set interface. The state of the system is changed discontinuously when the trajectory hits predefined sets, an autonomous jump set A or a controlled jump set C, where one controller can choose to jump or not. At each jump, the trajectory can move to a different Euclidean space. One player uses all the three types of controls, namely, continuous controls, autonomous jumps, and controlled jumps; the other player uses continuous controls and autonomous jumps. We prove the continuity of the associated lower and upper value functions V⁻ and V⁺. Using the dynamic programming principle satisfied by V⁻ and V⁺, we derive lower and upper quasivariational inequalities satisfied in the viscosity sense. We characterize the lower and upper value functions as the unique viscosity solutions of the corresponding quasivariational inequalities. Lastly, we state an Isaacs like condition for the game to have a value This work was partially supported by Grants DRDO 508 and ISRO 050 to the Non-linear Studies Group, Indian Institute of Science. The first author is a University Grant Commission Research Fellow and the financial support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors thank Prof. M.K. Ghosh, Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Science, for introducing the problem and thank the referee for useful suggestions.     

A discrete Fourier transform based on Simpson's rule

Fourier analysis plays a vital role in the analysis of continuous‐time signals. In many cases, we are forced to approximate the Fourier coefficients based on a sampling of the time signal. Hence, the need for a discrete transformation into the frequency domain giving rise to the classical discrete Fourier transform. In this paper, we present a transformation that arises naturally if one approximates the Fourier coefficients of a continuous‐time signal numerically using the Simpson quadrature rule. This results in a decomposition of the discrete signal into two sequences of equal length. We show that the periodic discrete time signal can be reconstructed completely from its discrete spectrum using an inverse transform. We also present many properties satisfied by this transform. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generalized immediate exchange models and their symmetries

We reconsider the discrete dual of the immediate exchange model and define a more general class of models where mass is split, exchanged and merged. We relate the splitting process to the symmetric inclusion process via thermalization and from that obtain symmetries and self-duality for it and its generalization. We show that analogous properties hold for models where the splitting is related to the symmetric exclusion process or to independent random walkers.     

Integrable models for vicious and friendly walkers

We consider random walks of two essentially different classes of random walkers, namely, of vicious and friendly ones, on one-dimensional lattices with periodic boundary conditions. The walkers are called vicious since, arriving at a lattice site, they annihilate not only one another but all the remaining walkers as well. On the contrary, an arbitrary number of friendly walkers can share the same lattice sites. It is shown that a natural model describing the behavior of friendly walkers is an integrable model of the boson type. A representation of the generating function for the number of the lattice paths performed by a fixed number of friendly walkers for a certain number of steps is obtained. Bibliography: 22 titles. __________ Translated from Zapiski Nauchnykh Seminarov POMI, Vol. 335, 2006, pp. 59–74.