Asymptotics for randomly reinforced urns with random barriers


Abstract in English

An urn contains black and red balls. Let $Z_n$ be the proportion of black balls at time $n$ and $0leq L<Uleq 1$ random barriers. At each time $n$, a ball $b_n$ is drawn. If $b_n$ is black and $Z_{n-1}<U$, then $b_n$ is replaced together with a random number $B_n$ of black balls. If $b_n$ is red and $Z_{n-1}>L$, then $b_n$ is replaced together with a random number $R_n$ of red balls. Otherwise, no additional balls are added, and $b_n$ alone is replaced. In this paper, we assume $R_n=B_n$. Then, under mild conditions, it is shown that $Z_noverset{a.s.}longrightarrow Z$ for some random variable $Z$, and begin{gather*} D_n:=sqrt{n},(Z_n-Z)longrightarrowmathcal{N}(0,sigma^2)quadtext{conditionally a.s.} end{gather*} where $sigma^2$ is a certain random variance. Almost sure conditional convergence means that begin{gather*} Pbigl(D_nincdotmidmathcal{G}_nbigr)overset{weakly}longrightarrowmathcal{N}(0,,sigma^2)quadtext{a.s.} end{gather*} where $Pbigl(D_nincdotmidmathcal{G}_nbigr)$ is a regular version of the conditional distribution of $D_n$ given the past $mathcal{G}_n$. Thus, in particular, one obtains $D_nlongrightarrowmathcal{N}(0,sigma^2)$ stably. It is also shown that $L<Z<U$ a.s. and $Z$ has non-atomic distribution.

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