A survey on the pseudo-process driven by the high-order heat-type equation \(\partial/\partial t=\pm\partial^N\!/\partial x^N\) concerning the hitting and sojourn times (Q1930603)

The author presents an updated survey on the results obtained in the field of functionals of pseudo-processes \(X(t)\), \(t>0\), whose transition function is the fundamental solution to equations of the form \(\frac{\partial}{\partial t} u = \kappa_N \frac{\partial^N}{\partial x^N}u\), \(N>0\). The tools on which the research of the distributions is based are some extended form of the Feynman-Kac functional and the Spitzer functional, applicable when the starting point is zero and the order \(N\) is even. The functionals considered concern the time of first (last) overshooting of one sided or two sided barriers, the sojourn time on half lines and the maximum of \(X(t)\), \(t>0\), up to time \(t\). The derivations of these distributions (and of joint distributions) requires a considerable ability which was manifested by the author in a series of recent papers which generalized former particular cases.