This volume presents recent developments in the area of Lévy-type
processes and more general stochastic processes that behave locally like
a Lévy process. Although written in a survey style, quite a few results
are extensions of known theorems, and others are completely new. The
focus is on the symbol of a Lévy-type process: a non-random function
which is a counterpart of the characteristic exponent of a Lévy process.
The class of stochastic processes which can be associated with a symbol
is characterized, various schemes constructing a stochastic process from
a given symbol are discussed, and it is shown how one can use the symbol
in order to describe the sample path properties of the underlying
process. Lastly, the symbol is used to approximate and simulate
Levy-type processes.
This is the third volume in a subseries of the Lecture Notes in
Mathematics called Lévy Matters. Each volume describes a number of
important topics in the theory or applications of Lévy processes and
pays tribute to the state of the art of this rapidly evolving subject
with special emphasis on the non-Brownian world.