Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2016
An extension of a convergence theorem for sequences of Markov chains is derived. For every positive integer N let (X N (r))r be a Markov chain with the same finite state space S and transition matrix ΠN =I+d N B N , where I is the unit matrix, Q a generator matrix, (B N )N a sequence of matrices, limN℩∞ c N = limN→∞d N =0 and limN→∞ c N ∕d N =0. Suppose that the limits P≔limm→∞(I+d N Q)m and G≔limN→∞ P B N P exist. If the sequence of initial distributions P X N (0) converges weakly to some probability measure μ, then the finite-dimensional distributions of (X N ([t∕c N ))t≥0 converge to those of the Markov process (X t )t≥0 with initial distribution μ, transition matrix PetG and limN→∞(I+d N Q+c N B N )[t∕c N]