A population of rare Monarch butterflies functions as follows. At the times of a Poisson process of rate $\lambda$ a caterpillar is produced from an egg. After an exponential time, the caterpillar is transformed into a pupa which, after an exponential time, becomes a butterfly. The butterfly lives for another exponential time and then dies. (The Poissonian assumption reflects the fact that butterflies lay a huge number of eggs most of which do not develop.) Suppose that all lifetimes are independent (of the arrival process and of each other) and let their rate be $\mu$. Assume that the population is in an equilibrium and let $C$ be the number of caterpillars, $R$ the number of pupae and $B$ the number of butterflies (so that the total number of insects, in any metamorphic form, equals $N=C+R+B)$. Let $\pi_{(c, r, b)}$ be the equilibrium probability $\mathbb{P}(C=c, R=r, B=b)$ where $c, r, b=0,1, \ldots$

(a) Specify the rates of transitions $(c, r, b) \rightarrow\left(c^{\prime}, r^{\prime}, b^{\prime}\right)$ for the resulting continuous-time Markov chain $\left(X_{t}\right)$ with states $(c, r, b)$. (The rates are non-zero only when $c^{\prime}=c$ or $c^{\prime}=c \pm 1$ and similarly for other co-ordinates.) Check that the holding rate for state $(c, r, b)$ is $\lambda+\mu n$ where $n=c+r+b$.

(b) Let $Q$ be the Q-matrix from (a). Consider the invariance equation $\pi Q=0$. Verify that the only solution is

$$\pi_{(c, r, b)}=\frac{(3 \lambda / \mu)^{n}}{3^{n} c ! r ! b !} \exp \left(-\frac{3 \lambda}{\mu}\right), \quad n=c+r+b$$

(c) Derive the marginal equilibrium probabilities $\mathbb{P}(N=n)$ and the conditional equilibrium probabilities $\mathbb{P}(C=c, R=r, B=b \mid N=n)$.

(d) Determine whether the chain $\left(X_{t}\right)$ is positive recurrent, null-recurrent or transient.

(e) Verify that the equilibrium probabilities $\mathbb{P}(N=n)$ are the same as in the corresponding $M / G I / \infty$ system (with the correct specification of the arrival rate and the service-time distribution).