Sample-path large deviations for a class of heavy-tailed Markov additive processes

Abstract: For a class of additive processes driven by the affine recursion $X_{n+1} = A_n X_n + B_n$, we develop a sample-path large deviations principle in the $M_1'$ topology on $D [0,1]$. We allow $B_n$ to have both signs and focus on the case where Kesten's condition holds on $A_1$, leading to heavy-tailed distributions. The most likely paths in our large deviations results are step functions with both positive and negative jumps.