Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2016
Piecewise-deterministic (PD) Markov processes consist of a mixture of deterministic motion and random jumps, the jumps occurring ‘spontanteously’ in a Poisson-like fashion and also ‘surely’ when the process hits certain boundaries. They form a flexible class of stochastic models, including as special cases almost all the non-diffusion models of applied probability. The construction of these processes will be outlined and precise characterization of the extended generator given.