Cutoff for a class of auto‐regressive models with vanishing additive noise

Abstract We analyze the convergence rates for a family of auto‐regressive Markov chains on Euclidean space depending on a parameter , where at each step a randomly chosen coordinate is replaced by a noisy damped weighted average of the others. The interest in the model comes from the connection with a certain Bayesian scheme introduced by de Finetti in the analysis of partially exchangeable data. Our main result shows that, when n gets large (corresponding to a vanishing noise), a cutoff phenomenon occurs.