Limit theorems for Markov processes via a variant of the Trotter-Kato theorem

Abstract

A variant of the Trotter–Kato theorem due to Kurtz (1969) is used to give new and simpler proofs of functional central limit theorems for Markov processes. Applications include theorems of Bellman and Harris (1951), Stone (1961), Karlin and McGregor (1965), Gihman and Skorokhod (1972) and Rosenkrantz (1975). In addition our methods yield a novel counterexample to the so-called ‘diffusion approximation'.