A compound Poisson process is a continuous-time
stochastic process
In probability theory and related fields, a stochastic () or random process is a mathematical object usually defined as a family of random variables in a probability space, where the index of the family often has the interpretation of time. Sto ...
with jumps. The jumps arrive randomly according to a
Poisson process
In probability theory, statistics and related fields, a Poisson point process (also known as: Poisson random measure, Poisson random point field and Poisson point field) is a type of mathematical object that consists of Point (geometry), points ...
and the size of the jumps is also random, with a specified probability distribution. To be precise, a compound Poisson process, parameterised by a rate
and jump size distribution ''G'', is a process
given by
:
where,
is the counting variable of a
Poisson process
In probability theory, statistics and related fields, a Poisson point process (also known as: Poisson random measure, Poisson random point field and Poisson point field) is a type of mathematical object that consists of Point (geometry), points ...
with rate
, and
are independent and identically distributed random variables, with distribution function ''G'', which are also independent of
When
are non-negative integer-valued random variables, then this compound Poisson process is known as a stuttering Poisson process.
Properties of the compound Poisson process
The
expected value
In probability theory, the expected value (also called expectation, expectancy, expectation operator, mathematical expectation, mean, expectation value, or first Moment (mathematics), moment) is a generalization of the weighted average. Informa ...
of a compound Poisson process can be calculated using a result known as
Wald's equation as:
:
Making similar use of the
law of total variance, the
variance
In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expected value of the squared deviation from the mean of a random variable. The standard deviation (SD) is obtained as the square root of the variance. Variance is a measure of dispersion ...
can be calculated as:
:
Lastly, using the
law of total probability, the
moment generating function can be given as follows:
:
:
Exponentiation of measures
Let ''N'', ''Y'', and ''D'' be as above. Let ''μ'' be the probability measure according to which ''D'' is distributed, i.e.
:
Let ''δ''
0 be the trivial probability distribution putting all of the mass at zero. Then the
probability distribution
In probability theory and statistics, a probability distribution is a Function (mathematics), function that gives the probabilities of occurrence of possible events for an Experiment (probability theory), experiment. It is a mathematical descri ...
of ''Y''(''t'') is the measure
:
where the exponential exp(''ν'') of a finite measure ''ν'' on
Borel subsets of the
real line
A number line is a graphical representation of a straight line that serves as spatial representation of numbers, usually graduated like a ruler with a particular origin (geometry), origin point representing the number zero and evenly spaced mark ...
is defined by
:
and
:
is a
convolution
In mathematics (in particular, functional analysis), convolution is a operation (mathematics), mathematical operation on two function (mathematics), functions f and g that produces a third function f*g, as the integral of the product of the two ...
of measures, and the series converges
weakly.
See also
*
Poisson process
In probability theory, statistics and related fields, a Poisson point process (also known as: Poisson random measure, Poisson random point field and Poisson point field) is a type of mathematical object that consists of Point (geometry), points ...
*
Poisson distribution
In probability theory and statistics, the Poisson distribution () is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time if these events occur with a known const ...
*
Compound Poisson distribution
*
Non-homogeneous Poisson process
*
Campbell's formula for the
moment generating function of a compound Poisson process
{{DEFAULTSORT:Compound Poisson Process
Poisson point processes
Lévy processes
de:Poisson-Prozess#Zusammengesetzte Poisson-Prozesse