A stochastic fixed point equation for weighted minima and maxima
Alsmeyer, Gerold ; Rösler, Uwe
Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Probab. Statist., Tome 44 (2008) no. 2, p. 89-103 / Harvested from Project Euclid
Given any finite or countable collection of real numbers Tj, j∈J, we find all solutions F to the stochastic fixed point equation ¶ \[W\stackrel {\mathrm {d}}{=}\inf_{j\in J}T_{j}W_{j},\] ¶ where W and the Wj, j∈J, are independent real-valued random variables with distribution F and $\stackrel {\mathrm {d}}{=}$ means equality in distribution. The bulk of the necessary analysis is spent on the case when |J|≥2 and all Tj are (strictly) positive. Nontrivial solutions are then concentrated on either the positive or negative half line. In the most interesting (and difficult) situation T has a characteristic exponent α given by ∑j∈JTjα=1 and the set of solutions depends on the closed multiplicative subgroup of ℝ>=(0, ∞) generated by the Tj which is either {1}, ℝ> itself or r={rn:n∈ℤ} for some r>1. The first case being trivial, the nontrivial fixed points in the second case are either Weibull distributions or their reciprocal reflections to the negative half line (when represented by random variables), while in the third case further periodic solutions arise. Our analysis builds on the observation that the logarithmic survival function of any fixed point is harmonic with respect to Λ=∑j≥1δTj, i.e. Γ=Γ⋆Λ, where ⋆ means multiplicative convolution. This will enable us to apply the powerful Choquet–Deny theorem.
Publié le : 2008-02-15
Classification:  Stochastic fixed point equation,  Weighted minima and maxima,  Weighted branching process,  Harmonic analysis on trees,  Choquet–Deny theorem,  Weibull distributions,  60E05,  60J80
@article{1203969869,
     author = {Alsmeyer, Gerold and R\"osler, Uwe},
     title = {A stochastic fixed point equation for weighted minima and maxima},
     journal = {Ann. Inst. H. Poincar\'e Probab. Statist.},
     volume = {44},
     number = {2},
     year = {2008},
     pages = { 89-103},
     language = {en},
     url = {http://dml.mathdoc.fr/item/1203969869}
}
Alsmeyer, Gerold; Rösler, Uwe. A stochastic fixed point equation for weighted minima and maxima. Ann. Inst. H. Poincaré Probab. Statist., Tome 44 (2008) no. 2, pp.  89-103. http://gdmltest.u-ga.fr/item/1203969869/