Tail generating functions for extendable branching processes

Abstract

We study branching processes of independently splitting particles in the continuous time setting. If time is calibrated such that particles live on average one unit of time, the corresponding transition rates are fully determined by the generating function f for the offspring number of a single particle. We are interested in the defective case f(1)=1−ϵ, where each splitting particle with probability ϵ is able to terminate the whole branching process. A branching process {Zt}t≥0 will be called extendable if f(q)=q and f(r)=r for some 0≤q