Journal of Applied Mathematics and Stochastic Analysis
Volume 9 (1996), Issue 4, Pages 469-488
doi:10.1155/S104895339600041X
    
    
    Descriptors for point processes based on runs: the Markovian arrival process
    
    Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson 85721-0022, AZ, USA
    
    
    
    Received 1 June 1996; Revised 1 September 1996
    	
    
       
    Copyright © 1996 Marcel F. Neuts. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
     
    
    
   
 
Abstract
This paper is part of a broader investigation of properties of a point process 
that can be identified by imagining that the process is involved in a competition 
for the generation of runs of events. The general purpose of that methodology is 
to quantify the prevalence of gaps and bursts in realizations of the process. The 
Markovian arrival process (MAP) is highly versatile in qualitative behavior and 
its analysis is numerically tractable by matrix-analytic methods. It can therefore 
serve well as a benchmark process in that investigation. In this paper, we consider the MAP and a regular grid competing for runs of lengths at least r1 and 
r2, respectively. A run of length r in one of the processes is defined as a string of 
r successive events occurring without an intervening event in the other process.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Roland L. Dobrushin.