On the maximal offspring in a subcritical branching process (Q2201477)

The author considers a Galton-Watson tree \(\mathsf{T}\) based on a generic offspring variable \(\xi\) taking values in \(\mathbb{N}_0\) with \(\mathbb{P}(\xi=0)>0\), \(\mathbb{P}(\xi \geq 2)>0\) and \(\mathbb{E}[\xi] < 1\) (subcritical case). Further, the author assumes that there is a slowly varying function \(f\) such that \[ \mathbb{P}(\xi=n) = f(n) n^{-1-\alpha} \] for all \(n \geq 1\) where \(\alpha > 1\) is a parameter. Now fix \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{N}_0\) such that \(\Omega\) or \(\mathbb{N}_0 \setminus \Omega = \Omega^{\mathsf{c}}\) is finite and with \(\mathbb{P}(\xi \in \Omega)>0\). Define \(\mathsf{T}_n^\Omega \subseteq \mathsf{T}\) to be the random subtree of \(\mathsf{T}\) consisting of those vertices in \(\mathsf{T}\) with outdegree in \(\Omega\). The first main result is a local limit theorem for \(\Delta(\mathsf{T}_n^\Omega)\), the maximal outdegree of a vertex in \(\mathsf{T}_n^\Omega\). It extends earlier work by \textit{S. Janson} [Probab. Surv. 9, 103--252 (2012; Zbl 1244.60013)] and \textit{I. Kortchemski} [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Probab. Stat. 51, No. 2, 489--511 (2015; Zbl 1315.60091)] who studied the maximal outdegree in the case \(\Omega = \mathbb{N}_0\). The paper contains further results on the limiting behavior of graph parameters such as the height, fringe subtree statistics, and the non-maximal vertex degrees.