Galton–Watson and branching process representations of the normalized Perron–Frobenius eigenvector

Abstract

Let A be a primitive matrix and let λ be its Perron–Frobenius eigenvalue. We give formulas expressing the associated normalized Perron–Frobenius eigenvector as a simple functional of a multitype Galton–Watson process whose mean matrix is A, as well as of a multitype branching process with mean matrix e(A−I)t. These formulas are generalizations of the classical formula for the invariant probability measure of a Markov chain.