Weibull-type limiting distribution for replicative systems

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2011 Mar;83(3 Pt 1):031123. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.83.031123. Epub 2011 Mar 21.

Abstract

The Weibull function is widely used to describe skew distributions observed in nature. However, the origin of this ubiquity is not always obvious to explain. In the present paper, we consider the well-known Galton-Watson branching process describing simple replicative systems. The shape of the resulting distribution, about which little has been known, is found essentially indistinguishable from the Weibull form in a wide range of the branching parameter; this can be seen from the exact series expansion for the cumulative distribution, which takes a universal form. We also find that the branching process can be mapped into a process of aggregation of clusters. In the branching and aggregation process, the number of events considered for branching and aggregation grows cumulatively in time, whereas, for the binomial distribution, an independent event occurs at each time with a given success probability.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Biophysics / methods
  • Cell Division
  • Models, Biological
  • Models, Statistical
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Normal Distribution
  • Physics / methods*
  • Probability
  • Statistical Distributions