Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-options-ii-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2007/m/m5/a/solution

A Poisson process of rate is a counting process starting at zero with independent stationary increments, with Poisson of mean for , and right-continuous paths with unit jumps. Equivalently the small-interval probabilities are for one event and for two or more.
Independence of the two processes makes their joint increments over disjoint intervals independent. On an interval of length , the sum of their independent Poisson increments has probability generating function
so it is Poisson with mean . Simultaneous arrivals have probability zero, so the sum retains unit jumps. It is therefore a Poisson process of rate .
The first arrival times are independent exponential variables of rates and . For positive rates,

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