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JOURNALS // Teoriya Veroyatnostei i ee Primeneniya // Archive

Teor. Veroyatnost. i Primenen., 2020 Volume 65, Issue 2, Pages 338–367 (Mi tvp5358)

This article is cited in 17 papers

Fatou's lemma in its classical form and Lebesgue's convergence theorems for varying measures with applications to Markov decision processes

E. A. Feinberga, P. O. Kas'yanovb, Y. Liangc

a Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
b Institute for Applied System Analysis, National Technical University of Ukraine ``Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute'', Kyiv, Ukraine
c Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Abstract: The classical Fatou lemma states that the lower limit of a sequence of integrals of functions is greater than or equal to the integral of the lower limit. It is known that Fatou's lemma for a sequence of weakly converging measures states a weaker inequality because the integral of the lower limit is replaced with the integral of the lower limit in two parameters, where the second parameter is the argument of the functions. In the present paper, we provide sufficient conditions when Fatou's lemma holds in its classical form for a sequence of weakly converging measures. The functions can take both positive and negative values. Similar results for sequences of setwise converging measures are also proved. We also put forward analogies of Lebesgue's and the monotone convergence theorems for sequences of weakly and setwise converging measures. The results obtained are used to prove broad sufficient conditions for the validity of optimality equations for average-cost Markov decision processes.

Keywords: Fatou's lemma, measure, weak convergence, setwise convergence, Markov decision process.

Received: 07.10.2018

DOI: 10.4213/tvp5358


 English version:
Theory of Probability and its Applications, 2020, 65:2, 270–291

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