A continuous-state branching process with immigration having branching mechanism $\Psi$ and immigration mechanism $\Phi$ , a CBI $(\Psi,\Phi)$ process for short, may have either of two different asymptotic regimes, depending on whether $\int_{0}\frac{\Phi(u)}{|\Psi(u)|}\textrm{d} u<\infty$ or $\int_{0}\frac{\Phi(u)}{|\Psi(u)|}\textrm{d} u=\infty$ . When $\int_{0}\frac{\Phi(u)}{|\Psi(u)|}\textrm{d} u<\infty$ , the CBI process has either a limit distribution or a growth rate dictated by the branching dynamics. When $\scriptstyle\int_{0}\tfrac{\Phi(u)}{|\Psi(u)|}\textrm{d} u=\infty$ , immigration overwhelms branching dynamics. Asymptotics in the latter case are studied via a nonlinear time-dependent renormalization in law. Three regimes of weak convergence are exhibited. Processes with critical branching mechanisms subject to a regular variation assumption are studied. This article proves and extends results stated by M. Pinsky in ‘Limit theorems for continuous state branching processes with immigration’ (Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.78, 1972).

The n-dimensional cyclic system of second-order nonlinear differential equations

is analysed in the framework of regular variation. Under the assumption that αi and βi are positive constants such that α1 … αn > β1 … βn and pi and qi are regularly varying functions, it is shown that the situation in which the system possesses decreasing regularly varying solutions of negative indices can be completely characterized, and moreover that the asymptotic behaviour of such solutions is governed by a unique formula describing their order of decay precisely. Examples are presented to demonstrate that the main results for the system can be applied effectively to some classes of partial differential equations with radial symmetry to provide new accurate information about the existence and the asymptotic behaviour of their radial positive strongly decreasing solutions.

Let $\Omega$ be a smooth bounded domain in ${R}^N$. We prove general uniqueness results for equations of the form $- \Delta u = au - b(x) f(u)$ in $\Omega$, subject to $u = \infty$ on $\partial \Omega$. Our uniqueness theorem is established in a setting involving Karamata's theory on regularly varying functions, which is used to relate the blow-up behavior of $u(x)$ with $f(u)$ and $b(x)$, where $b \equiv 0$ on $\partial \Omega$ and a certain ratio involving $b$ is bounded near $\partial \Omega$. A key step in our proof of uniqueness uses a modification of an iteration technique due to Safonov.

We consider the relative error of a tail function when this is approximated by y–α using an estimator of Hill's for α. The results combine recent work of Davis and Resnick on tail estimation with Anderson's work on large deviations in extreme-value theory. Treating separately the domains of attraction of Φα and Λ, we obtain general conditions for the relative error to tend to 0 as u →∞, y → ∞ simultaneously. The results serve as warning against the automatic extrapolation of estimates based on extreme-value approximations.

As an alternative to the embedding technique of T. E. Harris, S. Karlin and J. McGregor, we show that given a critical Galton–Watson process satisfying some mild assumptions, we can always construct a continuous-time Markov branching process having the same asymptotic behaviour as the given process. Thus, via the associated continuous process, additional information about the original process is obtained. We apply this technique to the study of extinction probabilities of a critical Galton–Watson process, and provide estimates for the extinction probabilities by regularly varying functions.

A Zipf's law is a probability distribution on the positive integers which decays algebraically. Such laws describe (approximately) a large class of phenomena. We formulate a model for such phenomena and, in terms of our model, give necessary and sufficient conditions for a Zipf's law to hold.

It is demonstrated for the non-critical and the explosive cases of the simple Bienaymé-Galton-Watson (B. G. W.) process (with and without immigration) that there exists a natural and intimate connection between regularly varying function theory and the asymptotic structure of the limit laws and corresponding norming constants. A similar fact had been demonstrated in connection with their invariant measures in [22]. This earlier study is complemented here by a similar analysis of the process where immigration occurs only at points of “emptiness” of the B. G. W. process.