Poisson-type processes governed by fractional and higher-order recursive differential equations

We consider some fractional extensions of the recursive differential equation governing the Poisson process, by introducing combinations of different fractional time-derivatives. We show that the so-called "Generalized Mittag-Leffler functions" (introduced by Prabhakar [20]) arise as solutions of these equations. The corresponding processes are proved to be renewal, with density of the intearrival times (represented by Mittag-Leffler functions) possessing power, instead of exponential, decay, for t tending to infinite. On the other hand, near the origin the behavior of the law of the interarrival times drastically changes for the parameter fractional parameter varying in the interval (0,1). For integer values of the parameter, these models can be viewed as a higher-order Poisson processes, connected with the standard case by simple and explict relationships.