Markov Renewal Theory for Transfer Operators and Point Processes on the Line

Abstract: We prove exponential decay of pair correlations for 1D stationary point processes when spacings satisfy a Markov condition, geometric ergodicity, and a condition on exponential moments. The conditions are phrased for stationary sequences of spacings (intervals between consecutive points) whose law comes from the Palm distribution of the point process. The key technical ingredient is a Markov renewal theorem with exponential convergence rate. The proofs combine classical regeneration techniques with the notion of geometric ergodicity for Markov chains with general state space. We apply the result to two models from statistical mechanics: (1) Gibbs point processes with a hard-core, finite-range pair potentials and (2) a harmonic chain of atoms, related to an autoregressive Gaussian process.