On the ubiquity of matrix-product states in one-dimensional stochastic processes with boundary interactions

Recently, it has been shown that the zero-energy eigenstate - corresponding to the stationary state - of a stochastic Hamiltonian with nearest-neighbour interaction in the bulk and single-site boundary terms, can generically be written in the form of a so-called matrix-product state. We generalize this result to stochastic Hamiltonians with arbitrary, but finite, interaction range. As an application two different particle-hopping models with three-site bulk interaction are studied. For these models which can be interpreted as cellular automats for traffic flow, we present exact solutions for periodic boundary conditions and some suitably chosen boundary interactions. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.