The rate of convergence of a generalized stable population (Q1087500)

Let \(P(t)^ T=[p_ 0(t),p_ 1(t),...,p_{n-1}(t)]\) be the population vector, where \(p_ i(t)\) represents the female population aged i at period t. If M(t) is the Leslie matrix at period t, then \[ (1)\quad P(t)=M(t)P(t-1). \] The population defined in (1) is a generalized stable population if there is a positive number \(x_ 0\) such that for any initial population \(P(0)>0\), there exists a positive vector K and a sequence of residual vectors \(O(x^ t_ 0)\) satisfying \[ (2)\quad P(t)=x^ t_ 0 K+V(x^ t_ 0),\quad t=1,2,..., \] where the residuals \(V(x^ t_ 0)\) are such that \(V(x^ t_ 0)/x^ t_ 0\) approaches O as t approaches infinity. Such a population is asymptotically exponential with growth rate \(\ell n(x_ 0).\) The author derives a measure of the rate of convergence to stability of an exponential population, and to see how the results specialize to the classical case of constant vital rates. The main result is the following Theorem: In a generalized stable population, the R-factor \(R_ 0\) is larger than or equal to the R-factor \(R\{x_ 0(t)\}\) of the sequence \(\{x_ 0(t)\}\), that is \[ R_ 0\geq R\{x_ 0(t)\}=\limsup_{t\to \infty}| x_ 0(t)-x_ 0|^{1/t}, \] which is equivalent to \[ S_ 0=-\ell n R_ 0\leq -\ell n R\{x_ 0(t)\}. \] In other words, the rate of convergence of a generalized stable population is bounded by the rate of convergence of the sequence \(\{x_ 0(t)\}\). In particular, if the convergence of the sequence \(\{x_ 0(t)\}\) is R-sublinear (i.e., the R-factor is 1) then the rate of convergence of the generalized stable population is O.