Spatial birth and death processes as solutions of stochastic equations

Abstract

Spatial birth and death processes are obtained as solutions of a system of stochastic equations. The processes are required to be locally finite, but may involve an infinite population over the full (noncompact) type space. Conditions are given for existence and uniqueness of such solutions, and for temporal and spatial ergodicity. For birth and death processes with constant death rate, a sub-criticality condition on the birth rate implies that the process is ergodic and converges exponentially fast to the stationary distribution.