Phase-type distribution

A phase-type distribution is a probability distribution

constructed by a convolution or mixture of exponential
Phase-type
distributions.[1] It results from a system of one or more inter- Parameters
related Poisson processes occurring in sequence, or phases. The subgenerator matrix
sequence in which each of the phases occurs may itself be a , probability row
stochastic process. The distribution can be represented by a vector
random variable describing the time until absorption of a Markov
Support
process with one absorbing state. Each of the states of the
Markov process represents one of the phases. PDF
See article for details
It has a discrete-time equivalent  – the discrete phase-type
CDF
distribution.
Mean
The set of phase-type distributions is dense in the field of all
Median no simple closed form
positive-valued distributions, that is, it can be used to approximate
any positive-valued distribution. Mode no simple closed form
Variance
Definition MGF
CF
Consider a continuous-time Markov process with m  +  1 states,
where m ≥ 1, such that the states 1,...,m are transient states and state 0 is an absorbing state. Further, let the
process have an initial probability of starting in any of the m  +  1 phases given by the probability vector
(α0 ,α) where α0 is a scalar and α is a 1 × m vector.

The continuous phase-type distribution is the distribution of time from the above process's starting until
absorption in the absorbing state.

This process can be written in the form of a transition rate matrix,

where S is an m × m matrix and S0 = –S1. Here 1 represents an m × 1 column vector with every element
being 1.

Characterization
The distribution of time X until the process reaches the absorbing state is said to be phase-type distributed
and is denoted PH(α,S).

The distribution function of X is given by,

and the density function,

for all x > 0, where exp(  ·  ) is the matrix exponential. It is usually assumed the probability of process
starting in the absorbing state is zero (i.e. α0 = 0). The moments of the distribution function are given by

The Laplace transform of the phase type distribution is given by

where I is the identity matrix.

Special cases
The following probability distributions are all considered special cases of a continuous phase-type
distribution:

Degenerate distribution, point mass at zero or the empty phase-type distribution – 0

phases.
Exponential distribution – 1 phase.
Erlang distribution – 2 or more identical phases in sequence.
Deterministic distribution (or constant) – The limiting case of an Erlang distribution, as the
number of phases become infinite, while the time in each state becomes zero.
Coxian distribution – 2 or more (not necessarily identical) phases in sequence, with a
probability of transitioning to the terminating/absorbing state after each phase.
Hyperexponential distribution (also called a mixture of exponential) – 2 or more non-
identical phases, that each have a probability of occurring in a mutually exclusive, or
parallel, manner. (Note: The exponential distribution is the degenerate situation when all the
parallel phases are identical.)
Hypoexponential distribution – 2 or more phases in sequence, can be non-identical or a
mixture of identical and non-identical phases, generalises the Erlang.

As the phase-type distribution is dense in the field of all positive-valued distributions, we can represent any
positive valued distribution. However, the phase-type is a light-tailed or platykurtic distribution. So the
representation of heavy-tailed or leptokurtic distribution by phase type is an approximation, even if the
precision of the approximation can be as good as we want.

Examples
In all the following examples it is assumed that there is no probability mass at zero, that is α0 = 0.

Exponential distribution

The simplest non-trivial example of a phase-type distribution is the exponential distribution of parameter λ.
The parameter of the phase-type distribution are : S = -λ and α = 1.

Hyperexponential or mixture of exponential distribution

The mixture of exponential or hyperexponential distribution with λ1 ,λ2 ,...,λn >0 can be represented as a
phase type distribution with

with and

This mixture of densities of exponential distributed random variables can be characterized through

or its cumulative distribution function

with

Erlang distribution

The Erlang distribution has two parameters, the shape an integer k > 0 and the rate λ > 0. This is sometimes
denoted E(k,λ). The Erlang distribution can be written in the form of a phase-type distribution by making S
a k×k matrix with diagonal elements -λ and super-diagonal elements λ, with the probability of starting in
state 1 equal to 1. For example, E(5,λ),

and

For a given number of phases, the Erlang distribution is the phase type distribution with smallest coefficient
of variation.[2]
The hypoexponential distribution is a generalisation of the Erlang distribution by having different rates for
each transition (the non-homogeneous case).

Mixture of Erlang distribution

The mixture of two Erlang distributions with parameter E(3,β1 ), E(3,β2 ) and (α1 ,α2 ) (such that α1 + α2 = 1
and for each i, αi ≥ 0) can be represented as a phase type distribution with

and

Coxian distribution

The Coxian distribution is a generalisation of the Erlang distribution. Instead of only being able to enter
the absorbing state from state k it can be reached from any phase. The phase-type representation is given
by,

and

where 0 < p1 ,...,pk-1 ≤ 1. In the case where all pi = 1 we have the Erlang distribution. The Coxian
distribution is extremely important as any acyclic phase-type distribution has an equivalent Coxian
representation.
The generalised Coxian distribution relaxes the condition that requires starting in the first phase.

Properties

Minima of Independent PH Random Variables

Similarly to the exponential distribution, the class of PH distributions is closed under minima of
independent random variables. A description of this is here (https://www.smp.uq.edu.au/people/YoniNazara
thy/teaching_projects/studentWork/Min_Two_Phase_Types.pdf).

Generating samples from phase-type distributed random

variables
BuTools (http://webspn.hit.bme.hu/~telek/tools/butools/butools.html) includes methods for generating
samples from phase-type distributed random variables.[3]

Approximating other distributions

Any distribution can be arbitrarily well approximated by a phase type distribution.[4][5] In practice,
however, approximations can be poor when the size of the approximating process is fixed. Approximating a
deterministic distribution of time 1 with 10 phases, each of average length 0.1 will have variance 0.1
(because the Erlang distribution has smallest variance[2]).

BuTools (http://webspn.hit.bme.hu/~telek/tools/butools/butools.html) a MATLAB and

Mathematica script for fitting phase-type distributions to 3 specified moments
momentmatching (https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~osogami/code/momentmatching/index.html) a
MATLAB script to fit a minimal phase-type distribution to 3 specified moments[6]
KPC-toolbox (https://github.com/kpctoolboxteam/kpc-toolbox) a library of MATLAB scripts to
fit empirical datasets to Markovian arrival processes and phase-type distributions.[7]

Fitting a phase type distribution to data

Methods to fit a phase type distribution to data can be classified as maximum likelihood methods or
moment matching methods.[8] Fitting a phase type distribution to heavy-tailed distributions has been shown
to be practical in some situations.[9]

PhFit (http://webspn.hit.bme.hu/~telek/tools.htm) a C script for fitting discrete and continuous

phase type distributions to data[10]
EMpht (http://home.imf.au.dk/asmus/pspapers.html) is a C script for fitting phase-type
distributions to data or parametric distributions using an expectation–maximization
algorithm.[11]
HyperStar (http://www.mi.fu-berlin.de/inf/groups/ag-tech/projects/HyperStar/index.html) was
developed around the core idea of making phase-type fitting simple and user-friendly, in
order to advance the use of phase-type distributions in a wide range of areas. It provides a
graphical user interface and yields good fitting results with only little user interaction.[12]
 jPhase (http://copa.uniandes.edu.co/?p=141) is a Java library which can also compute
metrics for queues using the fitted phase type distribution[13]

See also
Discrete phase-type distribution
Continuous-time Markov process
Exponential distribution
Hyper-exponential distribution
Queueing theory

References
1. Harchol-Balter, M. (2012). "Real-World Workloads: High Variability and Heavy Tails".
Performance Modeling and Design of Computer Systems. pp. 347–348.
doi:10.1017/CBO9781139226424.026 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FCBO9781139226424.02
6). ISBN 9781139226424.
2. Aldous, David; Shepp, Larry (1987). "The least variable phase type distribution is erlang" (htt
ps://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/Papers/me32-scan.PDF) (PDF). Stochastic Models. 3
(3): 467. doi:10.1080/15326348708807067 (https://doi.org/10.1080%2F1532634870880706
7).
3. Horváth, G. B.; Reinecke, P.; Telek, M. S.; Wolter, K. (2012). "Efficient Generation of PH-
Distributed Random Variates" (http://real.mtak.hu/26784/1/paper.pdf) (PDF). Analytical and
Stochastic Modeling Techniques and Applications. Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
Vol. 7314. p. 271. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-30782-9_19 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F978-3-642
-30782-9_19). ISBN 978-3-642-30781-2.
4. Bolch, Gunter; Greiner, Stefan; de Meer, Hermann; Trivedi, Kishor S. (1998). "Steady-State
Solutions of Markov Chains". Queueing Networks and Markov Chains. pp. 103–151.
doi:10.1002/0471200581.ch3 (https://doi.org/10.1002%2F0471200581.ch3).
ISBN 0471193666.
5. Cox, D. R. (2008). "A use of complex probabilities in the theory of stochastic processes".
Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 51 (2): 313–319.
doi:10.1017/S0305004100030231 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0305004100030231).
S2CID 122768319 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:122768319).
6. Osogami, T.; Harchol-Balter, M. (2006). "Closed form solutions for mapping general
distributions to quasi-minimal PH distributions". Performance Evaluation. 63 (6): 524.
doi:10.1016/j.peva.2005.06.002 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.peva.2005.06.002).
7. Casale, G.; Zhang, E. Z.; Smirni, E. (2008). "KPC-Toolbox: Simple Yet Effective Trace Fitting
Using Markovian Arrival Processes". 2008 Fifth International Conference on Quantitative
Evaluation of Systems (http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~gcasale/qest08kpctoolbox.pdf) (PDF). p. 83.
doi:10.1109/QEST.2008.33 (https://doi.org/10.1109%2FQEST.2008.33). ISBN 978-0-7695-
3360-5. S2CID 252444 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:252444).
8. Lang, Andreas; Arthur, Jeffrey L. (1996). "Parameter approximation for Phase-Type
distributions". In Chakravarthy, S.; Alfa, Attahiru S. (eds.). Matrix Analytic methods in
Stochastic Models. CRC Press. ISBN 0824797663.
9. Ramaswami, V.; Poole, D.; Ahn, S.; Byers, S.; Kaplan, A. (2005). "Ensuring Access to
Emergency Services in the Presence of Long Internet Dial-Up Calls". Interfaces. 35 (5): 411.
doi:10.1287/inte.1050.0155 (https://doi.org/10.1287%2Finte.1050.0155).
10. Horváth, András S.; Telek, Miklós S. (2002). "PhFit: A General Phase-Type Fitting Tool".
Computer Performance Evaluation: Modelling Techniques and Tools (http://webspn.hit.bme.
hu/~telek/cikkek/horv02h.ps.gz). Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 2324. p. 82.
doi:10.1007/3-540-46029-2_5 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2F3-540-46029-2_5). ISBN 978-3-
540-43539-6.
11. Asmussen, Søren; Nerman, Olle; Olsson, Marita (1996). "Fitting Phase-Type Distributions
via the EM Algorithm". Scandinavian Journal of Statistics. 23 (4): 419–441. JSTOR 4616418
(https://www.jstor.org/stable/4616418).
12. Reinecke, P.; Krauß, T.; Wolter, K. (2012). "Cluster-based fitting of phase-type distributions to
empirical data" (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.camwa.2012.03.016). Computers &
Mathematics with Applications. 64 (12): 3840. doi:10.1016/j.camwa.2012.03.016 (https://doi.
org/10.1016%2Fj.camwa.2012.03.016).
13. Pérez, J. F.; Riaño, G. N. (2006). "jPhase: an object-oriented tool for modeling phase-type
distributions". Proceeding from the 2006 workshop on Tools for solving structured Markov
chains (SMCtools '06) (http://wwwprof.uniandes.edu.co/~jf.perez33/data/PerezRiano_SMC_
2006.pdf) (PDF). doi:10.1145/1190366.1190370 (https://doi.org/10.1145%2F1190366.11903
70). ISBN 1595935061. S2CID 7863948 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:786394
8).

M. F. Neuts (1975), Probability distributions of phase type, In Liber Amicorum Prof. Emeritus
H. Florin, Pages 173-206, University of Louvain.
M. F. Neuts. Matrix-Geometric Solutions in Stochastic Models: an Algorithmic Approach (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=WPol7RVptz0C&q=%22Phase-type%22), Chapter 2:
Probability Distributions of Phase Type; Dover Publications Inc., 1981.
G. Latouche, V. Ramaswami. Introduction to Matrix Analytic Methods in Stochastic
Modelling, 1st edition. Chapter 2: PH Distributions; ASA SIAM, 1999.
C. A. O'Cinneide (1990). Characterization of phase-type distributions. Communications in
Statistics: Stochastic Models, 6(1), 1-57.
C. A. O'Cinneide (1999). Phase-type distribution: open problems and a few properties,
Communication in Statistic: Stochastic Models, 15(4), 731-757.

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