In a Markov chain with an initial state of x(0), the successive state vectors arex(1)=Px(0),x(2)=Px(1),x(3)=Px(2),x(4)=Px(3),.....
For brevity, it is common to denote x(k) by xk, which allows us to write the successive state vectors more briefly as x1=Px0,x2=Px1,x3=Px2,x4=Px3,....
Alternatively, these state vectors can be expressed in terms of the initial state vector x0 as