Excursion theory revisited (Q2505476)

Motivated by a recent paper by \textit{M. Fukushima} and \textit{H. Tanaka }[Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Probab. Stat. 41, No. 3, 419--459 (2005; Zbl 1083.60065)], the authors study excursions from a fixed point \(b\), in the framework of a general Borel right process. In this context, the left-continuous moderate Markov dual process plays an important role. One of the main results obtained express some basic quantities of excursion theory, such as: the Laplace-Lévy exponent of the inverse local time or the Laplace transform of the entrance law for the excursion process, as inner products involving simple hitting probabilities and expectations. In particular, the resolvent of the process may be expressed only in terms of quantities that depend only on the process and its dual, killed when they first hit the point \(b\). It is proved also that the mean occupation measure of excursion gives rise to an excessive measure, extending to this general framework some classical results [for example, see \textit{R. K. Getoor}, Ann. Probab. 7, 244--266 (1979; Zbl 0399.60069)].