The longest branches in a non-Markovian phylogenetic tree

Abstract

Consider a Bellman--Harris-type branching process, in which individuals evolve independently of one another, giving birth after a random time $T$ to a random number $L$ of children. In this article, we study the asymptotic behaviour of the length of the longest branches of this branching process at time $t$, both pendant branches (corresponding to individuals still alive at time $t$) and interior branches (corresponding to individuals dead before time $t$).