01-475 Abadi M.

SHARP ERROR TERMS AND NECCESARY CONDITIONS FOR EXPONENTIAL HITTING TIMES IN MIXING PROCESSES (307K, ps) Dec 17, 01

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Abstract. We prove an upper bound for the error in the exponential approximation of the hitting time law of a rare event in $\alpha$-mixing processes with exponential decay, $\phi$-mixing processes with a summable function $\phi$ and for general $\psi$-mixing processes with a finite alphabet. In the first case the bound is uniform as a function of the measure of the event. In the last two cases the bound depends also on the time scale $t$. This allow us to get further statistical properties as the ratio convergence of the expected hitting time and the expected return time. A uniform bound is a consequence. We present an example that shows that this bound is sharp. We also prove that second moments are not necessary for having the exponential law. Moreover, we prove a necessary condition for having the exponential limit law.

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