Lecture 7
Stochastic Equations with the
Markovian Fluctuations of Parameters
In the preceding Lecture, we dealt with the statistical description of dynamic systems
in terms of general methods that assumed knowledge of the characteristic functional
of fluctuating parameters. However, this functional is unknown in most cases, and we
are forced to resort either to assumptions on the model of parameter fluctuations, or to
asymptotic approximations.
The methods based on approximating fluctuating parameters with the Markovian
random processes and fields with a finite temporal correlation radius are widely used.
Such approximations can be found, for example, as solutions to the dynamic equations
with delta-correlated fluctuations of parameters. Consider such methods in greater
detail by the examples of the Markovian random processes.
Consider stochastic equations of the form
d
dt
x(t) = f
(
t, x, z(t)
)
, x(0) = x
0
, (7.1)
where f
(
t, x, z(t)
)
is the deterministic function and
z(t) = {z
1
(t), . . . , z
n
(t)}
is the Markovian vector process.
Our task consists in the determination of statistical characteristics of the solution to
Eq. (7.1) from known statistical characteristics of process z(t).
In the general case of arbitrary Markovian process z(t), we cannot judge about
process x(t). We can only assert that the joint process {x(t), z(t)} is the Markovian
process with joint probability density P(x, z, t).
If we could solve the equation for P(x, z, t), then we could integrate the solution
over z to obtain the probability density of the solution to Eq. (7.1), i.e., function P(x, t).
In this case, process x(t) by itself would not be the Markovian process.
There are several types of process z(t) that allow us to obtain equations for density
P(x, t) without solving the equation for P(x, z, t). Among these processes, we men-
tion first of all the telegrapher’s and generalized telegrapher’s processes, Markovian
Lectures on Dynamics of Stochastic Systems. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-384966-3.00007-6
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2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.