Given a branching random walk $(Z_n)_{n\geq0}$ on $\mathbb{R}$, let $Z_n(A)$ be the number of particles located in interval $A$ at generation $n$. It is well known (e.g., \cite{biggins}) that under some mild conditions, $Z_n(\sqrt nA)/Z_n(\mathbb{R})$ converges a.s. to $ν(A)$ as $n\rightarrow\infty$, where $ν$ is the standard Gaussian measure. In this work, we investigate its large deviation probabilities under the condition that the step size or offspring law has heavy tail, i.e. the decay rate of $$\mathbb{P}(Z_n(\sqrt nA)/Z_n(\mathbb{R})>p)$$ as $n\rightarrow\infty$, where $p\in(ν(A),1)$. Our results complete those in \cite{ChenHe} and \cite{Louidor}.
We derive asymptotics for the quenched probability that a critical branching Brownian motion killed at a small rate in Poissonian obstacles exits a large domain. Results are formulated in terms of the solution to a semilinear partial differential equation with singular boundary conditions. The proofs depend on a quenched homogenization theorem for branching Brownian motion among mild obstacles.
We study nearest-neighbors branching random walks started from a point at the interior of a hypercube. We show that the probability that the process escapes the hypercube is monotonically decreasing with respect to the distance of its starting point from the boundary. We derive as a consequence that at all times the number of particles at a site is monotonically decreasing with respect to its distance from the starting point.
We consider a supercritical Galton-Watson branching process with immigration. It is well known that under suitable conditions on the offspring and immigration distributions, there is a finite, strictly positive limit ${\mathcal{W}}$ for the normalized population size. Small value probabilities for ${\mathcal{W}}$ are obtained. Precise effects of the balance between offspring and immigration distributions are characterized.
We obtain sharp asymptotic estimates for hitting probabilities of a critical branching Brownian motion in one dimension with killing at 0 We also obtain sharp asymptotic formulas for the tail probabilities of the number of particles killed at 0. In the special case of double-or-nothing branching, we give exact formulas for both the hitting probabilities, in terms of elliptic functions, and the distribution of the number of killed particles.
In the first part of this paper we give easy and intuitive proofs for the small value probabilities of the martingale limit of a supercritical Galton-Watson process in both the Schröder and the Böttcher case. These results are well-known, but the most cited proofs rely on generating function arguments which are hard to transfer to other settings. In the second part we show that the strategy underlying our proofs can be used in the quite different context of self-intersections of stochastic processes. Solving a problem posed by Wenbo Li, we find the small value probabilities for intersection lo…
Given a branching random walk$\{Z_n\}_{n\geq0}$ on $\mathbb{R}$, let $Z_n([y,\infty))$ be the number of particles located in $[y,\infty)$ at generation $n$. It is known from \cite{Biggins1977} that under some mild conditions, $n^{-1}\log Z_n([θx^* n,\infty))$ converges a.s. to $\log m-I(θx^*)$, where $\log m-I(θx^*)$ is a positive constant. In this work, we investigate its lower deviation, in other words, the convergence rates of $$\mathbb{P}\left(Z_n([θx^* n,\infty))<e^{an}\right),$$ where $a\in[0,\log m-I(θx^*))$. Our results complete those in \cite{Mehmet}, \cite{Helower} and \cite{GWlower}…
We present two iterative methods for computing the global and partial extinction probability vectors for Galton-Watson processes with countably infinitely many types. The probabilistic interpretation of these methods involves truncated Galton-Watson processes with finite sets of types and modified progeny generating functions. In addition, we discuss the connection of the convergence norm of the mean progeny matrix with extinction criteria. Finally, we give a sufficient condition for a population to become extinct almost surely even though its population size explodes on the average, which is …
We consider a class of multitype Galton-Watson branching processes with a countably infinite type set $\mathcal{X}_d$ whose mean progeny matrices have a block lower Hessenberg form. For these processes, the probability $\boldsymbol{q}(A)$ of extinction in subsets of types $A\subseteq \mathcal{X}_d$ may differ from the global extinction probability $\boldsymbol{q}$ and the partial extinction probability $\tilde{\boldsymbol{q}}$. After deriving partial and global extinction criteria, we develop conditions for $\boldsymbol{q}<\boldsymbol{q}(A)<\tilde{\boldsymbol{q}}$. We then present an iterative…
Given a super-critical branching random walk on $\mathbb{R}$ started from the origin, let $Z\_n(\cdot)$ be the counting measure which counts the number of individuals at the $n$-th generation located in a given set. Under some mild conditions, it is known in \cite{B90} that for any interval $A\subset \mathbb{R}$, $\frac{Z\_n(\sqrt{n}A)}{Z\_n(\mathbb{R})}$ converges a.s. to $ν(A)$, where $ν$ is the standard Gaussian measure. In this work, we investigate the convergence rates of $$\mathbb{P}\left(\frac{Z\_n(\sqrt{n}A)}{Z\_n(\mathbb{R})}-ν(A)>Δ\right),$$ for $Δ\in (0, 1-ν(A))$, in both Schr{ö}der…
We consider Galton-Watson branching processes with countable typeset $\mathcal{X}$. We study the vectors ${\bf q}(A)=(q_x(A))_{x\in\mathcal{X}}$ recording the conditional probabilities of extinction in subsets of types $A\subseteq \mathcal{X}$, given that the type of the initial individual is $x$. We first investigate the location of the vectors ${\bf q}(A)$ in the set of fixed points of the progeny generating vector and prove that $q_x(\{x\})$ is larger than or equal to the $x$th entry of any fixed point, whenever it is different from 1. Next, we present equivalent conditions for $q_x(A)< q_x…
We give a concise self-contained presentation of known and new limit theorems for the one-type Markov branching processes with continuous time. The new streamlined proofs are based on what we call, the tail generating function approach. Our analysis focuses on the singularity points of the master integral equation for the probability generating functions of the current population size.
Foss and Zachary (2003) and Foss, Palmowski and Zachary (2005) studied the probability of achieving a receding boundary on a time interval of random length by a random walk with a heavy-tailed jump distribution. They have proposed and developed a new approach that allows to generalise results of Asmussen (1998) onto the case of arbitrary stopping times and a wide class of nonlinear boundaries, and to obtain uniform results over all stopping times. In this paper, we consider a class of branching random walks with fading branching and obtain results on the tail asymptotics for the maximum of a b…
In this paper, we study the weak convergence of the extremes of supercritical branching Lévy processes $\{\mathbb{X}_t, t \ge0\}$ whose spatial motions are Lévy processes with regularly varying tails. The result is drastically different from the case of branching Brownian motions. We prove that, when properly renormalized, $\mathbb{X}_t$ converges weakly. As a consequence, we obtain a limit theorem for the order statistics of $\mathbb{X}_t$.
We consider a branching random walk on $\mathbb{R}$ with a killing barrier at zero. At criticality, the process becomes eventually extinct, and the total progeny $Z$ is therefore finite. We show that the tail distribution of $Z$ displays a typical behaviour in $(n\ln^2(n))^{-1}$, which confirms the prediction of Addario-Berry and Broutin.
Consider a critical branching random walk on $\mathbb{Z}^d$, $d\geq 1$, started with a single particle at the origin, and let $L(x)$ be the total number of particles that ever visit a vertex $x$. We study the tail of $L(x)$ under suitable conditions on the offspring distribution. In particular, our results hold if the offspring distribution has an exponential moment.
The reduced Markov branching process is a stochastic model for the genealogy of an unstructured biological population. Its limit behavior in the critical case is well studied for the Zolotarev-Slack regularity parameter $α\in(0,1]$. We turn to the case of very heavy tailed reproduction distribution $α=0$ assuming Zubkov's regularity condition with parameter $β\in(0,\infty)$. Our main result gives a new asymptotic pattern for the reduced branching process conditioned on non-extinction during a long time interval.
In a seminal paper Biggins and Kyprianou \cite{BKy04} proved the existence of a non degenerate limit for the {\it Derivative martingale} of the branching random walk. As shown in \cite{Aid11} and \cite{Mad11}, this is an object of central importance in the study of the extremes of the branching random walk. In this paper we investigate the tail distribution of the limit of the {\it Derivative Martingale} by mean of the study of the global minimum of the branching random walk. This new approach leads us to extend the results of \cite{Gui90} and \cite{Bur09} under slighter assumptions.
Given a super-critical branching random walk on $\mathbb R$ started from the origin, let $M_n$ be the maximal position of individuals at the $n$-th generation. Under some mild conditions, it is known from \cite{A13} that as $n\rightarrow\infty$, $M_n-x^*n+\frac{3}{2θ^*}\log n$ converges in law for some suitable constants $x^*$ and $θ^*$. In this work, we investigate its moderate deviation, in other words, the convergence rates of $$\mathbb{P}\left(M_n\leq x^*n-\frac{3}{2θ^*}\log n-\ell_n\right),$$ for any positive sequence $(\ell_n)$ such that $\ell_n=O(n)$ and $\ell_n\uparrow\infty$. As a by-…
We obtain new upper tail probabilities of $m$-times integrated Brownian motions under the uniform norm and the $L^p$ norm. For the uniform norm, Talagrand's approach is used, while for the $L^p$ norm, Zolotare's approach together with suitable metric entropy and the associated small ball probabilities are used. This proposed method leads to an interesting and concrete connection between small ball probabilities and upper tail probabilities (large ball probabilities) for general Gaussian random variable in Banach spaces. As applications, explicit bounds are given for the largest eigenvalue of t…
In this paper, we study estimates on tail probabilities $\mathbb{P}(S_r \ge t)$ of several classes of subordinators under mild assumptions on the tail of its Lévy measure. As an application of that result, we obtain two-sided estimates for fundamental solutions of general homogeneous time fraction equations including those with Dirichlet boundary conditions.
This article studies asymptotic approximations of ruin probabilities of multivariate random walks with heavy-tailed increments. Under our assumptions, the distributions of the increments are closely connected to multivariate subexponentiality and admit dependence between components. Keywords: subexponential distribution, ruin probability, multivariate random walk
We show bounds on tail probabilities for quadratic forms in sub-gaussian non-necessarily independent random variables. Our main tool will be estimates of the Luxemburg norms of such forms. This will allow us to formulate the above-mentioned bounds. As an example we give estimates of the excess loss in fixed design linear regression in dependent observations.
Suppose that $(Z_n)_{n\geq0}$ is a supercritical branching process in independent and identically distributed random environment. The right tail function of the scaled growth rate for $(Z_n)_{n\geq0}$ is studied. The upper bounds for $\displaystyle\mathbb{P}\left[\frac{\log Z_n}{Mn}-μ\geq x\right]$ for any $x\geq3$ are obtained, by applying an extension of the Hoeffding type inequalities.
We analyse the splitting algorithm performance in the estimation of rare event probabilities and this in a discrete multidimensional framework. For this we assume that each threshold is partitioned into disjoint subsets and the probability for a particle to reach the next threshold will depend on the starting subset. A straightforward estimator of the rare event probability is given by the proportion of simulated particles for which the rare event occurs. The variance of this estimator we get is the sum of two parts: one part resuming the variability due to each threshold and a second part res…
We provide exact asymptotics for the tail probabilities $\mathbb{P} \{S_{n,r} > x\}$ as $x \to \infty$, for fix $n$, where $S_{n,r}$ is the $r$-trimmed partial sum of i.i.d. St. Petersburg random variables. In particular, we prove that although the St. Petersburg distribution is only O-subexponential, the subexponential property almost holds. We also determine the exact tail behavior of the $r$-trimmed limits.
We consider a fixed-point equation for a non-negative integer-valued random variable, that appears in branching processes with state-independent immigration. A similar equation appears in the analysis of a single-server queue with a homogeneous Poisson input, feedback and permanent customer(s). It is known that the solution to this equation uniquely exists under mild first and logarithmic moments conditions. We find further the tail asymptotics of the distribution of the solution when the immigration size and branch size distributions are heavy-tailed. We assume that the distributions of inter…
We study the one-dimensional branching random walk in the case when the step size distribution has a stretched exponential tail, and, in particular, no finite exponential moments. The tail of the step size $X$ decays as $\mathbb{P}[X \geq t] \sim a \exp(-λt^r)$ for some constants $a, λ> 0$ where $r \in (0,1)$. We give a detailed description of the asymptotic behaviour of the position of the rightmost particle, proving almost-sure limit theorems, convergence in law and some integral tests. The limit theorems reveal interesting differences betweens the two regimes $ r \in (0, 2/3)$ and $ r \in (…
Let $\{X_1, X_2, ... \}$ be a sequence of dependent heavy-tailed random variables with distributions $F_1, F_2,...$ on $(-\infty,\infty)$, and let $τ$ be a nonnegative integer-valued random variable independent of the sequence $\{X_k, k \ge 1\}$. In this framework, we study the asymptotic behavior of the tail probabilities of the quantities $X_{(n)} = \max_{1\le k \le n} X_k$, $S_n =\sum_{k=1}^n X_k$ and $S_{(n)}=\max_{1\le k\le n} S_k$ for $n>1$, and for those of their randomized versions $X_{(τ)}$, $S_τ$ and $S_{(τ)}$. We also consider applications of the results obtained to some commonly-us…
Consider a branching random walk on the real line with a killing barrier at zero: starting from a nonnegative point, particles reproduce and move independently, but are killed when they touch the negative half-line. The population of the killed branching random walk dies out almost surely in both critical and subcritical cases, where by subcritical case we mean that the rightmost particle of the branching random walk without killing has a negative speed, and by critical case, when this speed is zero. We investigate the total progeny of the killed branching random walk and give their precise ta…
In this paper we analyze a branching process with immigration defined recursively by $X_t=θ_t\circ X_{t-1}+B_t$ for a sequence $(B_t)$ of i.i.d. random variables and random mappings $ θ_t\circ x:=θ_t(x)=\sum_{i=1}^xA_i^{(t)}, $ with $(A_i^{(t)})_{i\in \mathbb{N}_0}$ being a sequence of $\mathbb{N}_0$-valued i.i.d. random variables independent of $B_t$. We assume that one of generic variables $A$ and $B$ has a regularly varying tail distribution. We identify the tail behaviour of the distribution of the stationary solution $X_t$. We also prove CLT for the partial sums that could be further gene…
Consider a branching system with particles moving according to an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with drift $μ>0$ and branching according to a law in the domain of attraction of the $(1+β)$-stable distribution. The mean of the branching law is strictly larger than $1$ implying that the system is supercritical and the total number of particles grows exponentially at some rate $λ>0$. It is known that the system obeys a law of large numbers. In the paper we study its rate of convergence. We discover an interesting interplay between the branching rate $λ$ and the drift parameter $μ$. There are three r…
Tail asymptotics of the solution $R$ to a fixpoint problem of type $R =_{st} Q + \sum_1^N R_m$ is derived under heavy-tailed conditions allowing both dependence between $Q$ and $N$ and the tails to be of the same order of magnitude. Similar results are derived for a $K$-class version with applications to multitype branching processes and busy periods in multiclass queues.
We study branching processes of independently splitting particles in the continuous time setting. If time is calibrated such that particles live on average one unit of time, the corresponding transition rates are fully determined by the generating function $f$ for the offspring number of a single particle. We are interested in the defective case $f(1)=1-ε$, where each splitting particle with probability $ε$ is able to terminate the whole branching process. A branching process $\{Z_t\}_{t\ge0}$ will be called extendable if $f(q)=q$ and $f(r)=r$ for some $0\le q<r<\infty$. Specializing on the ex…
We consider the critical branching processes in correlated random environment which is positively associated and study the probability of survival up to the n-th generation. Moreover, when the environment is given by fractional Brownian motion, we estimate also the tail of progeny as well as the tail of width.
Consider a heavy-tailed branching process (denoted by $Z_{n}$) in random environments, under the condition which infers that $\mathbb{E}\log m(ξ_{0})=\infty$. We show that (1) there exists no proper $c_{n}$ such that $\{Z_{n}/c_{n}\}$ has a proper, non-degenerate limit, (2) normalized by a sequence of functions, a proper limit can be obtained, i.e., $y_{n}\left(\barξ,Z_{n}(\barξ)\right)$ converges almost surely to a random variable $Y(\barξ)$, where $Y\in(0,1)~η$-a.s., (3) finally, we give a necessary and sufficient conditions for the almost sure convergence of $\left\{\frac{U(\barξ,Z_{n}(\bar…
We consider a branching random walk on a multi($Q$)-type, supercritical Galton-Watson tree which satisfies Kesten-Stigum condition. We assume that the displacements associated with the particles of type $Q$ have regularly varying tails of index $α$, while the other types of particles have lighter tails than that of particles of type $Q$. In this article, we derive the weak limit of the sequence of point processes associated with the positions of the particles in the $n^{th}$ generation. We verify that the limiting point process is a randomly scaled scale-decorated Poisson point process (SScDPP…
For a continuous-time catalytic branching random walk (CBRW) on Z, with an arbitrary finite number of catalysts, we study the asymptotic behavior of position of the rightmost particle when time tends to infinity. The mild requirements include the regular variation of the jump distribution tail for underlying random walk and the well-known L log L condition for the offspring numbers. In our classification, given in the previous paper, the analysis refers to supercritical CBRW. The principle result demonstrates that, after a proper normalization, the maximum of CBRW converges in distribution to …
Let $\{ξ_n\}$ be a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables. In this paper we study the comparison for two upper tail probabilities $\mathbb{P}\{\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}a_n|ξ_n|^p\geq r\}$ and $\mathbb{P}\{\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}b_n|ξ_n|^p\geq r\}$ as $r\rightarrow\infty$ with two different real series $\{a_n\}$ and $\{b_n\}.$ The first result is for Gaussian random variables $\{ξ_n\},$ and in this case these two probabilities are equivalent after suitable scaling. The second result is for more general random variables, thus a weaker form of equivalence (namely, logarithmic …
For multitype branching processes with immigration evolving in a random environment and producing a final product we find the tail distribution of the size of the final product accumulated in the system for a life period. Using this result we investigate the tail distribution of the busy periods of the branching type polling systems with random service disciplines and random positive switch-over times
We prove large deviation results for the position of the rightmost particle, denoted by $M_n$, in a one-dimensional branching random walk in a case when Cramér's condition is not satisfied. More precisely we consider step size distributions with stretched exponential upper and lower tails, i.e.~both tails decay as $e^{-|t|^r}$ for some $r\in( 0,1)$. It is known that in this case, $M_n$ grows as $n^{1/r}$ and in particular faster than linearly in $n$. Our main result is a large deviation principle for the laws of $n^{-1/r}M_n$ . In the proof we use a comparison with the maximum of (a random num…
In this paper, we provide a review on the kernel method, which is one of the options for characterizing so-called exact tail asymptotic properties in stationary probabilities of two-dimensional random walks, discrete or continuous (or mixed), in the quarter plane. Many two-dimensional queueing systems can be modelled via these types of random walks. Stationary probabilities are one of the most sought statistical quantities in queueing analysis. However, explicit expressions are available only for a very limited number of models. Therefore, tail asymptotic properties become more important, sinc…
Sequential Monte Carlo methods which involve sequential importance sampling and resampling are shown to provide a versatile approach to computing probabilities of rare events. By making use of martingale representations of the sequential Monte Carlo estimators, we show how resampling weights can be chosen to yield logarithmically efficient Monte Carlo estimates of large deviation probabilities for multidimensional Markov random walks.
The $N$-particle branching random walk is a discrete time branching particle system with selection. We have $N$ particles located on the real line at all times. At every time step each particle is replaced by two offspring, and each offspring particle makes a jump of non-negative size from its parent's location, independently from the other jumps, according to a given jump distribution. Then only the $N$ rightmost particles survive; the other particles are removed from the system to keep the population size constant. Inspired by work of J. Bérard and P. Maillard, we examine the long term behav…
We study the extremes of branching random walks under the assumption that the underlying Galton-Watson tree has infinite progeny mean. It is assumed that the displacements are either regularly varying or they have lighter tails. In the regularly varying case, it is shown that the point process sequence of normalized extremes converges to a Poisson random measure. We study the asymptotics of the scaled position of the rightmost particle in the $n$-th generation when the tail of the displacement behaves like $\exp(-K(x))$, where either $K$ is a regularly varying function of index $r> 0$, or $K$ …
Let $ξ_1, ξ_2, \dots$ be i.i.d. non-negative random variables whose tail varies regularly with index $-1$, let $S_n$ be the sum and $M_n$ the largest of the first $n$ values. We clarify for which sequences $x_n\to\infty$ we have $\mathbb P(S_n \ge x_n) \sim \mathbb P(M_n \ge x_n)$ as $n\to\infty$. Outside this regime, the typical size of $S_n$ conditioned on exceeding $x_n$ is not completely determined by the largest summand and we provide an appropriate correction term which involves the integrated tail of $ξ_1$.
We study generalized branching random walks, which allow time dependence and local dependence between siblings. Under appropriate tail assumptions, we prove the tightness of $F_n(\cdot-Med(F_n))$, where $F_n(\cdot)$ is the maxima distribution at time $n$ and $Med(F_n)$ is the median of $F_n(\cdot)$. The main component in the argument is a proof of exponential decay of the right tail $1-F_n(\cdot-Med(F_n))$.
