The non-central negative binomial distribution: Further properties and applications

Abstract

The non-central negative binomial distribution is both a mixed and compound Poisson distribution with applications in photon and neural counting, statistical optics, astronomy and a stochastic reversible counter system. In this paper various important probabilistic properties of the non-central negative binomial distribution in practical applications like log-concavity, discrete self-decomposability, unimodality, asymptotic behavior and tail length of the probability distribution have been derived. The construction as a mixed Poisson process by specifying a joint distribution for the inter-arrival times and its application is illustrated by a fit to real life data set.