Chernoff bounds for discriminating between two markov processes

Abstract

We study a statistical hypothesis testing problem, where a sample function of a Markov process with one of two sets of known parameters is observed over a finite time interval. When a log likelihood ratio test is used to discriminate between the two sets of parameters, we give bounds on the probability of choosing an incorrect hypothesis, and on the total probability of error, for both discrete and continuous time parameter, and discrete and continuous state space. The asymptotic behavior of the bounds is examined as the observation interval becomes infinite.