--- title: "Markov Chain Model of Diffusion" author: "Math 365 Tanya Leise" date: "February 1, 2016" output: html_document --- The objective of these exercises is to explore large-time behavior and equilibria (invariant probability distributions) of finite-state Markov chains. Feel free to discuss problems with each other during lab in addition to asking me questions. Please email your completed work as a pdf knit from your updated R markdown file, to tleise@amherst.edu. To take powers of matrices in R, remember to load the matrix exponentiation package expm. If you haven't installed it yet, do _install.packages('expm')_. ```{r results='hide', message=FALSE, warning=FALSE} library(expm) ``` ### Warm-up problem Suppose an urn contains 2 balls, where balls can be either blue or red. Initially, both balls are red. At each stage, one ball is removed at random and replaced by a new ball, which with probability 0.8 is the same color as the removed ball and with probability 0.2 is the opposite color. 1. Define $X_n$ to be the number of red balls in the urn after the $n$th selection. What are the possible states? What is the transition matrix $\mathbf{P}$ for the resulting Markov chain? (Type possible states here and enter correct matrix values in R code below.) ```{r} P <- matrix(0,3,3) P[1,] <- c(.3,.3,0) P[2,] <- c(.3,.3,.3) P[3,] <- c(0,.3,.3) P ``` 2. What is the probability that $X_1=2$, given that $X_0=2$? 3. What is the probability that $X_5=2$, given that $X_0=2$? (Use a power of $\mathbf{P}$ to compute this.) 4. What is the probability in the long run that the chain is in state 2? Solve in two ways: (a) raise $\mathbf{P}$ to a large power; (b) compute the left eigenvectors of $\mathbf{P}$ and find the one corresponding to eigenvalue 1. ### Bernoulli-Laplace model of diffusion Consider two urns $A$ and $B$, each of which contains $m$ balls; $b$ of the $2m$ total balls are black and the remaining $2m-b$ are white. At each stage, one ball is randomly chosen from each urn and put in the other urn (done simultaneously, so balls are being swapped between urns). Define $X_n$ to be the number of black balls in urn $A$ after the $n$th swap. Observe that $X_n=i$ implies $A$ contains $i$ black balls and $m-i$ white balls, while $B$ contains $b-i$ black balls and $m-(b-i)$ white balls. The resulting Markov chain is a probabilistic model of diffusion of two fluids. Let $m=4$ and $b=4$ for purposes of this lab (to keep calculations manageable). Assume urn $A$ initially contains 4 white balls and $B$ contains 4 black balls. 5. What are the possible states? What is the transition matrix $\mathbf{P}$ for the resulting Markov chain? What kind of boundaries does this chain have? ```{r} P <- matrix(0,5,5) # 5x5 matrix of zeros P[1,2]<-1 P[5,4]<-1 # enter the correct values for P P[2,1:3]<-c(0/16,0/16,0/16) P[3,2:4]<-c(0/16,0/16,0/16) P[4,3:5]<-c(0/16,0/16,0/16) ``` 6. What is the probability that $X_2=0$, given that $X_0=0$? 7. What is the probability that $X_3=0$, given that $X_0=0$? 8. What is the probability that $X_6=0$, given that $X_0=0$? 9. Let $\phi_0$ be the initial probability distribution corresponding to $X_0=0$, and let $\phi_n=\phi_0\mathbf{P}^n$. As $n$ increases, what is $\phi_n$ converging to? ```{r} phi0<-c(1,0,0,0,0) n<-10 phi0 %*% (P %^% n) ``` 10. Find the eigenvalues of $\mathbf{P}$. ```{r} r <- eigen(t(P)) r$values ``` 11. Find the left eigenvector of $\mathbf{P}$ corresponding to eigenvalue 1, and compare to the vector you found in Exercise 9.