Metastable Distributions of Semi-Markov Processes

Abstract: In this paper, we consider semi-Markov processes whose transition times and transition probabilities depend on a small parameter $\varepsilon$. Understanding the asymptotic behavior of such processes is needed in order to study the asymptotics of various randomly perturbed dynamical and stochastic systems. The long-time behavior of a semi-Markov process $X^\varepsilon_t$ depends on how the point $(1/\varepsilon, t(\varepsilon))$ approaches infinity. We introduce the notion of complete asymptotic regularity (a certain asymptotic condition on transition probabilities and transition times), originally developed for parameter-dependent Markov chains, which ensures the existence of the metastable distribution for each initial point and a given time scale $t(\varepsilon)$. The result may be viewed as a generalization of the ergodic theorem to the case of parameter-dependent semi-Markov processes.