Math 419, Section 201
Stochastic Processes, Assignments and Reading

Date Reading Homework
Week of Mon Dec 31 First day of class handout here
§6.1 Markov property, Time homogeneity,
Transition probability, Branching process, Example 6.1.10, Ch
apman Kolmogorov eqns
assignment 1,
see below for due date
Week of Mon Jan 07 Joint probability law, past and future events,
review of conditional probability, pull through and other properties, answer to pull-through question,
§6.2, first passage times, classification of states Thm 6.2.3
assignment 1 due  on Friday
assignment 2
Week of Mon Jan 14
Abel thm 5.1.15, Corollary 6.2.4,
Expected number of visits to a state,
§6.3, Communication, classes, class properties, Dominated convergence, monotone convergence, Fatou Lemma, interchange of sums.
assignment 2 due on Friday
assignment 3
Week of Mon Jan 21
§6.4 stationary distributions
Role of positive recurrence, irreducibility,
existence of and formula for stationary distribution
Thm 6.4.3 and proofs

assignment 3 due on Friday
assignment 4
Week of Mon Jan 28 Convergence to stationary distribution, Thm 6.4.17
and proof by coupling in
§6.4.
The time reversed Markov chain §6.5.
Equations of detailed balance, application to
Ehrenfest model
§6.5.  Finite state chains 
assignment 4 due on Friday
no hw this week because of
midterm next week
Week of Mon Feb 04
Random walk on a graph
MonteCarlo simulation of self-avoiding walk by the pivot algorithm
MonteCarlo Simulation of SAW
time averages and the stationary distribution §6.4. The  renewal theorem §10.2.  Lectures 17=midterm
Midterm Wed. Feb 09
[
on assignments 1,2,3,4]
assignment 5
Week of Mon Feb 11
Monday
Family Day.
University closed

Defn of martingale §7.7 and  §12.1. Examples based on simple random walk. Failures of fairness in the limit. Discrete stochastic integrals.
Defn of filtration,  sub and super martingales §12.1.
Doob upcrossing lemma,
midterm survey
please fill out and hand in
assignment 5 due 
assignment 6
Week of Mon Feb 18
Spring Break



Week of Mon Feb 25 supermartingale convergence theorem §12.3 and §7.8.
domination from above and below, Fatou implies
Dominated convergence thm
,
Stopped martingales and optional sampling §12.4.
uniformly square integrable martingales are fair in the limit
§12.5 and §7.8.
assignment 6 due
assignment 7
Week of Mon Mar 04 Uses of martingale examples:
rw hits all points, expected time to exit a a set of states.
Kolmogorov SLLN, difference between weak and strong law.
Bellman optimality.
assignment 7 due
assignment 8
Week of Mon Mar 11
Financial Math application.
Binary splitting models and representing rv by stochastic integrals, self-financing portfolios.
Cox Rubinstein model, equivalent martingale measure,
present value of an option.
Review of Poisson rv, generating function, sum of Poisson is Poisson.
assignment 8 due
assignment 9
Week of Mon Mar 18
infinitely divisible rv and characterisation of Poisson rv
§6.8 Poisson process and relation to exp times
strong Markov property
of Poisson process
assignment 9 due
No
assignment 10, instead
start learning everything for final
Week of Mon Mar 25
Friday Good Friday. University closed

Continuous time Markov processes §6.9
time between jumps are i.i.d. exp(lambda) Claim 6.9.13
Jump time independent of destination, Claim 6.9.14

Exponential clock algorithm for X.
Explosions, birth process 6.8.11, Thm 6.8.19.

Week of Mon Apr 01
Easter Monday. University closed.
Friday Apr 5 Last day
Office Hours for rest of term
§6.10, standard process Thm 6.10.1
Infinitesmal generator G, computation for birth process 6.9.7.
Kolmogorov backward equations, Thm 6.10.6, P = exp(tG).

Exam schedule
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