Construction and regularity of measure-valued Markov branching processes (Q1120913)

Let M(E) be the space of finite measures on a measurable space (E,\({\mathcal E})\). A Markov evolution X on M(E) is called a branching process if \[ (X| X_ 0=\mu +\nu)=(X'+X''| X_ 0''=\nu,\quad X_ 0'=\mu) \] whenever \(X'\) and \(X''\) are independent copies of X. This article is concerned with a special class of such evolutions, with infinitesimal generator L: \[ L(F)(\mu)=\int_{E}\mu (dx)c(x)F''(\mu;x)+\int_{E}\mu (dx)[AF'(m,\cdot)(x)-b(x)F'(\mu;x)]+ \] \[ +\int_{E}\mu (dx)\int^{\infty}_{0}n(x,du)[F(\mu +u\epsilon_ x)-F(\mu)-uF'(\mu \quad;x)], \] where A is the infinitesimal generator of a ``spatial motion \(\xi\) '', (a Markov evolution on E,) \(c\geq 0\), c and b are bounded measurable functions, n(x,du) is a kernel from (E,\({\mathcal E})\) to (0,x). Of course, \(\epsilon_ x\) is the Dirac measure and \(F'\), \(F''\) are the 1st and 2nd variational derivatives of F. The basic existence construction is given in {\S}2 with hypotheses much weaker than those usually made. The resulting evolution is shown in {\S}3 to be quite regular. The objects are composites, and techniques from related fields have to be employed. E.g. harmonic analysis on Abelian semigroups and balayage order. But the results obtained are rather neat!