Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-101/5/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 101 5 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Conditional on , the summands are independent with the common Laplace transform of a nonnegative random variable . The empty sum for is zero. Therefore the compound Poisson distribution hasand applying the probability generating function from part (a) givesIf , differentiating at zero from the right gives and . HenceThe differentiation is justified by and the dominated convergence theorem. No finite moment was assumed in the question, so the formula must also be interpreted when . For any nonnegative random variable , the monotone convergence theorem givesApply this to and , and use as , with ; it yields the same formula with value when . If , nonnegativity makes all marks zero almost surely and the result is immediate.
For the second method, condition on the count rather than differentiating a transform. For finite , the tower property of conditional expectation gives , and gives . More generally, Tonelli's theorem and independence giveFor , already the term is infinite since . Thus the two methods agree, including in the extended-valued case.
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