Abstract
We study a variational problem (VP) that is related to semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions (SRBMs). Specifically, this VP appears in the large deviations analysis of the stationary distribution of SRBMs in the d-dimensional orthant R d +. When d=2, we provide an explicit analytical solution to the VP. This solution gives an appealing characterization of the optimal path to a given point in the quadrant and also provides an explicit expression for the optimal value of the VP. For each boundary of the quadrant, we construct a “cone of boundary influence”, which determines the nature of optimal paths in different regions of the quadrant. In addition to providing a complete solution in the 2-dimensional case, our analysis provides several results which may be used in analyzing the VP in higher dimensions and more general state spaces.
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Avram, F., Dai, J. & Hasenbein, J. Explicit Solutions for Variational Problems in the Quadrant. Queueing Systems 37, 259–289 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011004620420
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011004620420