Fixed points of the smoothing transform: two-sided solutions (Q1939557)

The authors describe under some general assumptions the set of all solutions of the fixed-point equation \(X \mathop{=}\limits^{d} C + \sum_{j \geq 1} T_j X_j\), resp. the corresponding homogeneous equation with \(C = 0\). Here \(T_j\) are nonnegative random variables and \(X_j\) are i.i.d. copies of \(X\). The main results of the paper extend a large literature concerning nonnegative solutions, two-sided solutions to homogeneous equation and the connection between homogeneous and inhomogeneous equations given under some additional assumptions. \(A\) general solution \(X\) of the inhomogeneous case has a representation of the form \(X \mathop{=}\limits^{d} W^* + W^{1/2} Y \), where \(W\) is a nontrivial nonnegative solution of the homogeneous equation which can be chosen as intrinsic martingale limit of an associated branching random walk. \(W^*\) is a special inhomogeneous solution and \(Y\) is a stable random variable. The coupling of \(W\), \(W^*\) is constructed in explicit form. Fixed-point equations of the form above arise in the asymptotic analysis of divide and conquer algorithms as for the quicksort algorithm.