Abstract
This chapter is devoted to the use of time-continuous branching process with exponential life-time distributions. This process also has the Markov property and is closely related to the Galton–Watson process. The exponential distribution to model lifetimes of particles is not well motivated by any biological assumptions. Indeed, the exponential distribution admits lifetimes which are arbitrarily close to 0, while it is known that life cycles of organisms and cells have lower bounds of durations, which are greater than 0. The advantage of using the exponential distribution is that it leads, in many cases, to computable expressions. These expressions allow one to deduce properties which can then be conjectured for more general models.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kimmel, M., Axelrod, D. (2015). The Age-Dependent Process: Markov Case. In: Branching Processes in Biology. Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics, vol 19. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1559-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1559-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-1558-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1559-0
eBook Packages: Mathematics and StatisticsMathematics and Statistics (R0)