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Non-explosivity of limits of conditioned birth and death processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

G. O. Roberts*
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
S. D. Jacka*
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
P. K. Pollett*
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
*
Postal address: Statistical Laboratory, 16 Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 ISB, UK.
∗∗Postal address: Department of Statistics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.
∗∗∗Postal address: Department of Mathematics, University of Queensland, Queensland 4072, Australia.

Abstract

Let X be a birth and death process on with absorption at zero and suppose that X is suitably recurrent, irreducible and non-explosive. In a recent paper, Roberts and Jacka (1994) showed that as T → ∞ the process conditioned to non-absortion until time T converges weakly to a time-homogeneous Markov limit, X, which is itself a birth and death process. However the question of the possibility of explosiveness of X remained open. The major result of this paper establishes that X is always non-explosive.

Type
Research Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Applied Probability Trust 1997 

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