Chernoff bounds for branching random walks
Abstract
Concentration inequalities, which have proved very useful in a variety of fields, provide fairly tight bounds on large deviation probabilities while central limit theorem (CLT) describes the asymptotic distribution around the mean (at the scale). Harris (1963) conjectured that for a supercritical branching random walk (BRW) of i.i.d offspring and i.i.d displacements, positions of individuals in generation approach to Gaussian distribution -- central limit theorem. This conjecture was later proved by Stam (1966) and Kaplan \& Asmussen (1976). Refinements and extensions followed. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no corresponding existing work on concentration inequalities for BRWs. In this note, we propose a new definition of BRW, providing a more general framework. Owing to this definition, a Chernoff-type (subgaussian) bound for BRWs follows directly from the Chernoff bound for random walk. The relation between RW (random walk) and BRW is discussed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1604.00056,
title = {Chernoff bounds for branching random walks},
author = {Changqing Liu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.00056},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Revised version: (1) Added explanation for the definition of branching random walk (BRW). (2) Replaced na with n{\mu} throughout to eliminate notation confusion. (3) Corrected typo and grammar error