The genealogy of continuous-state branching processes with immigration

Recent works by J.F. Le Gall and Y. Le Jan [15] have extended the genealogical structure of Galton-Watson processes to continuous-state branching processes (CB). We are here interested in processes with immigration (CBI). The height process H which contains all the information about this genealogical structure is defined as a simple local time functional of a strong Markov process X ^*, called the genealogy-coding process (GCP). We first show its existence using It?’s synthesis theorem. We then give a pathwise construction of X ^* based on a Lévy process X with no negative jumps that does not drift to +∞ and whose Laplace exponent coincides with the branching mechanism, and an independent subordinator Y whose Laplace exponent coincides with the mechanism. We conclude the construction with proving that the local time process of H is a CBI-process. As an application, we derive the analogue of the classical Ray–Knight–Williams theorem for a general Lévy process with no negative jumps. Received: 28 January 2000 / Revised version: 5 February 2001 / Published online: 11 December 2001     

Backbone decomposition for continuous-state branching processes with immigration

In the spirit of Duquesne and Winkel (2007) and Berestycki et al. (2011), we show that supercritical continuous-state branching process with a general branching mechanism and general immigration mechanism is equivalent in law to a continuous-time Galton-Watson process with immigration (with Poissonian dressing). The result also helps to characterise the limiting backbone decomposition which is predictable from the work on consistent growth of Galton-Watson trees with immigration in Cao and Winkel (2010).     

Stochastic equations for two-type continuous-state branching processes with immigration

A two-dimensional stochastic integral equation system with jumps is studied. We first prove its unique weak solution is a two-type continuous-state branching process with immigration. Then the comparison property of the solution is established. These results imply the existence and uniqueness of the strong solution of the stochastic equation system.     

Parameter estimation in two-type continuous-state branching processes with immigration

We study the parameter estimation of two-type continuous-state branching processes with immigration based on low frequency observations at equidistant time points. The ergodicity of the processes is proved. The estimators are based on the minimization of a sum of squared deviation about conditional expectations. We also establish the strong consistency and central limit theorems of the conditional least squares estimators and the weighted conditional least squares estimators of the drift and diffusion coefficients based on low frequency observations.     

Stochastic equations for two-type continuous-state branching processes with immigration and competition

A class of two-type continuous-state branching processes with immigration and competition is constructed as the solution of a jump-type stochastic integral equation system. We first show that the stochastic equation system has a pathwise unique non-negative strong solution and then prove the comparison property of the solution.     

Conditional limit theorems for critical continuous-state branching processes

We study the conditional limit theorems for critical continuous-state branching processes with branching mechanism ψ(λ) = λ1+αL(1/λ), where α∈ [0, 1] and L is slowly varying at ∞. We prove that if α∈(0, 1], there are norming constants Qt→ 0(as t ↑ +∞) such that for every x 0, Px(QtXt∈·| Xt 0)converges weakly to a non-degenerate limit. The converse assertion is also true provided the regularity of ψ at0. We give a conditional limit theorem for the case α = 0. The limit theorems we obtain in this paper allow infinite variance of the branching process.     

On the convergence rate in one limit theorem for branching processes with immigration

We obtain the convergence rate for the distribution of the fluctuation of almost critical branching processes with immigration to the normal law.     

On sequential estimation for branching processes with immigration

Consider a Galton–Watson process with immigration. The limiting distributions of the nonsequential estimators of the offspring mean have been proved to be drastically different for the critical case and subcritical and supercritical cases. A sequential estimator, proposed by Sriram et al. (Ann. Statist. 19 (1991) 2232), was shown to be asymptotically normal for both the subcritical and critical cases. Based on a certain stopping rule, we construct a class of two-stage estimators for the offspring mean. These estimators are shown to be asymptotically normal for all the three cases. This gives, without assuming any prior knowledge, a unified estimation and inference procedure for the offspring mean.     

Nonlinear branching processes with immigration

The nonlinear branching process with immigration is constructed as the pathwise unique solution of a stochastic integral equation driven by Poisson random measures. Some criteria for the regularity, recurrence, ergodicity and strong ergodicity of the process are then established.     

Extinction properties of multi-type continuous-state branching processes

Recently in Barczy et al. (2015), the notion of a multi-type continuous-state branching process (with immigration) having $d$-types was introduced as a solution to an $d$-dimensional vector-valued SDE. Preceding that, work on affine processes, originally motivated by mathematical finance, in Duffie et al. (2003) also showed the existence of such processes. See also more recent contributions in this direction due to Gabrielli and Teichmann (2014) and Caballero and Pérez Garmendia (2017). Older work on multi-type continuous-state branching processes is more sparse but includes Watanabe (1969) and Ma (2013), where only two types are considered. In this paper we take a completely different approach and consider multi-type continuous-state branching process, now allowing for up to a countable infinity of types, defined instead as a super Markov chain with both local and non-local branching mechanisms. In the spirit of Engländer and Kypriano (2004) we explore their extinction properties and pose a number of open problems.     

Markov branching processes with instantaneous immigration

Summary Markov branching processes with instantaneous immigration possess the property that immigration occurs immediately the number of particles reaches zero, i.e. the conditional expectation of sojourn time at zero is zero. In this paper we consider the existence and uniqueness of such a structure. We prove that if the sum of the immigration rates is finite then no such structure can exist, and we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for existence for the case in which this sum is infinite. Study of the uniqueness problem shows that for honest processes the solution is unique.     

Supercritical age-dependent branching processes with immigration

This paper considers a population process where individuals reproduce according to an age-dependent branching process and immigrants enter the population at the event epochs of an ergodic point process. A limit theorem is proven for what corresponds to the supercritical case, and the limit random variable is investigated.     

Sevastyanov branching processes with non-homogeneous Poisson immigration

Sevastyanov age-dependent branching processes allowing an immigration component are considered in the case when the moments of immigration form a non-homogeneous Poisson process with intensity r(t). The asymptotic behavior of the expectation and of the probability of non-extinction is investigated in the critical case depending on the asymptotic rate of r(t). Corresponding limit theorems are also proved using different types of normalization. Among them we obtained limiting distributions similar to the classical ones of Yaglom (1947) and Sevastyanov (1957) and also discovered new phenomena due to the non-homogeneity.     

Extinction time and the total mass of the continuous-state branching processes with competition

Consider a general continuous-state branching process with additional interaction, which destroys the branching property. We give precise conditions on the interaction term, in order to decide whether the extinction time of the process remains or not bounded as the initial value tends to infinity, and similarly for the total mass of the process.