POISSON LIMIT THEOREM FOR COUNTABLE MARKOV CHAINS IN MARKOVIAN ENVIRONMENTS

A countable Markov chain in a Markovian environment is considered.A Poisson limit theorem for the chain recurring to small cylindrical sets is mainly achieved.In order to prove this theorem,the entropy function h is introduced and the Shannon-McMillan-Breiman theorem for the Markov chain in a Markovian environment is shown. It's well-known that a Markov process in a Markovian environment is generally not a standard Markov chain,so an example of Poisson approximation for a process which is not a Markov process is given.On the other hand,when the environmental process degenerates to a constant sequence,a Poisson limit theorem for countable Markov chains,which is the generalization of Pitskel's result for finite Markov chains is obtained.