Stationary switching random walks

Vladislav Vysotsky

Published 2024-03-07Version 1

A switching random walk, commonly known under the misnomer `oscillating random walk', is a real-valued Markov chain such that the distribution of its increments depends only on the sign of the current position. In this note we find invariant measures for such chains. In the particular case where the chain is an actual random walk, our proof naturally relates its stationarity relative to the Lebesgue measure to stationarity of the renewal processes of its ascending and descending ladder heights.