Ray-Knight representation of flows of branching processes with competition by pruning of Lévy trees (Q1626618)

Population models with branching behaviour are investigated which include, among other features, interactions of different kinds, immigration, and negative density dependence. The last property represents competition among individuals, e.g., due to limited resources. The mathematical model is a flow of continuous state branching processes (measure-valued branching processes), which is roughly a family \(Z=(Z_t(v):t\geq 0, v\geq 0)\) of continuous state branching processes with a common branching mechanism. Here, \(v\) is the initial state of the process \((Z_t(v):t\geq 0)\), and the family \(Z_{(\cdot)}(v)\) is the strong solution of a stochastic differential equation for each \(v\) which includes a density dependent killing component for individuals in the solution. The authors develop a genealogical description for branching processes with competition (density dependent killing) which is based on an interactive cutting of Lévy trees and establish a Ray-Knight representation for the processes in terms of the local times of suitably pruned forests.