Tightness for Maxima of Generalized Branching Random Walks

Abstract

We study generalized branching random walks, which allow time dependence and local dependence between siblings. Under appropriate tail assumptions, we prove the tightness of $F_n(\cdot-Med(F_n))$, where $F_n(\cdot)$ is the maxima distribution at time $n$ and $Med(F_n)$ is the median of $F_n(\cdot)$. The main component in the argument is a proof of exponential decay of the right tail $1-F_n(\cdot-Med(F_n))$.