Towards Markov-state holography

Abstract Experiments, in particular on biological systems, typically probe lower-dimensional observables which are projections of high-dimensional dynamics. In order to infer consistent models capturing the relevant dynamics of the system, it is important to detect and account for the memory in the dynamics. We develop a method to infer the presence of hidden states and transition pathways based on observable transition probabilities conditioned on history sequences of visited states for projected (i.e. observed) dynamics of Markov processes. Histograms conditioned on histories reveal information on the transition probabilities of hidden paths locally between any specific pair of observed states. The convergence rate of these histograms towards a stationary distribution provides a local quantification of the duration of memory , which reflects how distinct microscopic paths projecting onto the same observed transition decorrelate in path space. This motivates the notion of ‘weak Markov order’ and provides insight about the hidden topology of microscopic paths in a holography-like fashion. The method can be used to test for the local Markov property of observables. The information extracted is also helpful in inferring relevant hidden transitions which are not captured by a Markov-state model.