Paper 3, Section II, J

Applied Probability
Part II, 2014

(i) Define a Poisson process (Nt,t0)\left(N_{t}, t \geqslant 0\right) with intensity λ\lambda. Specify without justification the distribution of NtN_{t}. Let T1,T2,T_{1}, T_{2}, \ldots denote the jump times of (Nt,t0)\left(N_{t}, t \geqslant 0\right). Derive the joint distribution of (T1,,Tn)\left(T_{1}, \ldots, T_{n}\right) given {Nt=n}\left\{N_{t}=n\right\}.

(ii) Let (Nt,t0)\left(N_{t}, t \geqslant 0\right) be a Poisson process with intensity λ>0\lambda>0 and let X1,X2,X_{1}, X_{2}, \ldots be a sequence of i.i.d. random variables, independent of (Nt,t0)\left(N_{t}, t \geqslant 0\right), all having the same distribution as a random variable XX. Show that if g(s,x)g(s, x) is a real-valued function of real variables s,xs, x, and TjT_{j} are the jump times of (Nt,t0)\left(N_{t}, t \geqslant 0\right) then

E[exp{θj=1Ntg(Tj,Xj)}]=exp{λ0t(E(eθg(s,X))1)ds}\mathbb{E}\left[\exp \left\{\theta \sum_{j=1}^{N_{t}} g\left(T_{j}, X_{j}\right)\right\}\right]=\exp \left\{\lambda \int_{0}^{t}\left(\mathbb{E}\left(e^{\theta g(s, X)}\right)-1\right) d s\right\}

for all θR\theta \in \mathbb{R}. [Hint: Condition on {Nt=n}\left\{N_{t}=n\right\} and T1,,TnT_{1}, \ldots, T_{n}, using (i).]

(iii) A university library is open from 9 am to 5pm5 \mathrm{pm}. Students arrive at times of a Poisson process with intensity λ\lambda. Each student spends a random amount of time in the library, independently of the other students. These times are identically distributed for all students and have the same distribution as a random variable XX. Show that the number of students in the library at 5pm5 \mathrm{pm} is a Poisson random variable with a mean that you should specify.