TALK by J. Berestycki
May 1, 2008
Coalescents and branching processes: how fast do they come
down from infinity?
Julien Berestycki (Université Paris 6)
The main focus of this talk will be on the way coalescents
come down from infinity, and in particular on the asymptotic
behavior of the number of blocks at small times. We show
that it is given by the number of families alive at small
times in a branching process. This approach casts a new
light on recent results of Berestycki et al. and Bertoin
and Le Gall which gave this behavior in special cases and
connects in a unified way several recent results of Bertoin
and Le Gall, Birkner et al., and Berestycki et al.
(Based on joint works with N. Berestycki and J. Schweinsberg,
N. Berestycki and V. Limic)