Spectral analysis of finite Markov chains with spherical symmetries (Q2381827)

The authors develop a Fourier analysis associated with the action of a finite group \(G\) on a finite set \(X\), whose restriction to each orbit on \(X\) gives rise to a Gelfand pair. In this setting, they analyze \(G\)-invariant operators on the space \(L(X)\) of complex-valued functions on \(X\). A general method is given to reduce the computation of the spectrum of such an operator to the computation of the spectra of matrices of smaller dimension, which are obtained by restricting the operator to each isotypic component of the decomposition of \(L(X)\) into \(G\)-irreducible representations. This analysis is used to determine the spectra of some random walks on graphs (the \(q\)-ary tree, truncated cube, and a deformation of the Ehrenfest model). For a combination of the Ehrenfest model and the Bernoulli-Laplace model, called the second order Ehrenfest diffusion model, the authors give upper and lower estimates for the rate of convergence of the random walk to the stationary distribution.