Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-year-1-of-the-computer-science-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/discrete-mathematics-continuous-mathematics-and-probability-resit/8/a/iii/solution

For , condition on . Its independence from the preserves their independent common distribution, so part (ii) gives
For , this is , agreeing with . By the law of total expectation,
This proves the probability generating function of an independent random sum. For nonnegative outside , the same argument is valid whenever the right side is finite, by Tonelli's theorem for nonnegative sums. For signed or complex , a sufficient absolute-convergence condition is ; it holds automatically on . Outside this domain, mere evaluation of an analytically extended expression is not a substitute for existence of the probability generating function.

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