Simulating an infinite mean waiting time

• We consider a hybrid method to simulate the return time to the initial state in a critical-case birth-death process. The expected value of this return time is infinite, but its distribution asymptotically follows a power-law. Hence, the simulation approach is to directly simulate the process, unless the simulated time exceeds some threshold and if it does, draw the return time from the tail of the power law.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Matematik -- Sannolikhetsteori och statistik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Mathematics -- Probability Theory and Statistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

birth-death process; infinite mean; phylogenetic tree; power-law distribution; return time

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)