This book presents a concise introduction to piecewise deterministic
Markov processes (PDMPs), with particular emphasis on their applications
to biological models. Further, it presents examples of biological
phenomena, such as gene activity and population growth, where different
types of PDMPs appear: continuous time Markov chains, deterministic
processes with jumps, processes with switching dynamics, and point
processes. Subsequent chapters present the necessary tools from the
theory of stochastic processes and semigroups of linear operators, as
well as theoretical results concerning the long-time behaviour of
stochastic semigroups induced by PDMPs and their applications to
biological models.
As such, the book offers a valuable resource for mathematicians and
biologists alike. The first group will find new biological models that
lead to interesting and often new mathematical questions, while the
second can observe how to include seemingly disparate biological proc
esses into a unified mathematical theory, and to arrive at revealing
biological conclusions. The target audience primarily comprises of
researchers in these two fields, but the book will also benefit graduate
students.