Abstract
This paper gives a unified probabilistic approach to the limit theory of finite offspring mean supercritical branching processes. It is shown that the key to the convergence in probability of suitably normed branching processes is a law of large numbers for a triangular array of independent random variables. Criteria for convergence together with characterisations of the norming constants and limiting distributions follow from this property. The models considered include the Galton-Watson and the general age-dependent both in the simple and multitype case as well as in the varying and random environment settings. A martingale derived from a weakly convergent subsequence is essential in the proofs.
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Cohn, H. (1995). Supercritical Branching Processes: A Unified Approach. In: Heyde, C.C. (eds) Branching Processes. Lecture Notes in Statistics, vol 99. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2558-4_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2558-4_1
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
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