Generalized Schr\"oder-type functional equations for Galton-Watson processes in random environments

TL;DR

This paper studies complex Galton-Watson processes with random, time-dependent fission probabilities, describing their limit distributions through generalized Schr"oder-type functional equations and exploring asymptotic behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces generalized integral and differential Schr"oder-type equations for Galton-Watson processes in random environments and proposes approximate asymptotic methods for their analysis.

Findings

Limit distributions characterized by generalized Schr"oder equations

Asymptotic methods developed for complex random environments

Oscillations in asymptotics become rare in random settings

Abstract

The classical Galton--Watson process works with a fixed probability of fission at each time step. One of the generalizations is that the probabilities depend on time. We consider one of the most complex and interesting cases when we do not know the exact probabilities of fission at each time step - these probabilities are random variables themselves. The limit distributions of the number of descendants are described in terms of generalized integral and differential functional equations of the Schr\"oder type. There are no more analogs of periodic Karlin-McGregor functions, which were very helpful in the analysis of the asymptotic behavior of limit distributions for the classical case. We propose some approximate asymptotic methods. Even simple cases of random families with one or two members lead to nice asymptotics involving, interesting problems related to special functions and special constants. One of them, Example 2 is already announced on \href{https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/4748129/asymptotics-of-sequence-of-rational-numbers}{this} and \href{https://mathoverflow.net/questions/458885/simple-integral-equation}{this} sites. Finally, the phenomenon of why the oscillations in the main asymptotic term usual for the classical case become rare in the case of random environments is discussed.