Alpha-stable branching and beta-coalescents

We determine that the continuous-state branching processes for which the genealogy, suitably time-changed, can be described by an autonomous Markov process are precisely those arising from α-stable branching mechanisms. The random ancestral partition is then a time-changed Λ-coalescent, where Λ is t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Birkner, M, Blath, J, Capaldo, M, Etheridge, A, Mohle, M, Schweinsberg, J, Wakolbinger, A
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2005
Description
Summary:We determine that the continuous-state branching processes for which the genealogy, suitably time-changed, can be described by an autonomous Markov process are precisely those arising from α-stable branching mechanisms. The random ancestral partition is then a time-changed Λ-coalescent, where Λ is the Beta-distribution with parameters 2 - α and α, and the time change is given by Z1-α, where Z is the total population size. For α = 2 (Feller's branching diffusion) and Λ = δ0 (Kingman's coalescent), this is in the spirit of (a non-spatial version of) Perkins' Disintegration Theorem. For α = 1 and Λ the uniform distribution on [0, 1], this is the duality discovered by Bertoin and Le Gall (2000) between the norming of Neveu's continuous state branching process and the Bolthausen-Sznitman coalescent. We present two approaches: one, exploiting the 'modified lookdown construction', draws heavily on Donnelly and Kurtz (1999); the other is based on direct calculations with generators.