Regularly varying functions in the theory of simple branching processes

Abstract

It is demonstrated for the non-critical and the explosive cases of the simple Bienaymé-Galton-Watson (B. G. W.) process (with and without immigration) that there exists a natural and intimate connection between regularly varying function theory and the asymptotic structure of the limit laws and corresponding norming constants. A similar fact had been demonstrated in connection with their invariant measures in [22]. This earlier study is complemented here by a similar analysis of the process where immigration occurs only at points of “emptiness” of the B. G. W. process.