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I ran into a problem calculating the following expectation value:

smin = -6.; ds = 0.1; c = 6;
Expectation[x/c*e^((smin + (counter - 1)*ds)*x/c), x ≈ PoissonDistribution[c]]

It seems that Mathematica gets stuck for the value counter = 10, and I don't understand why. Could someone help?

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  • $\begingroup$ I can get the generic Expectation[x/c Exp[a + b x /c], x \[Distributed] PoissonDistribution[n]]. $\endgroup$
    – b.gates.you.know.what
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 14:56
  • $\begingroup$ How is that possible? On my laptop it doesn't work! $\endgroup$
    – Francesco Coghi
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 15:09
  • $\begingroup$ Is it possible that you need \[Distributed] instead of ≈ ? (as @b.gatessucks suggests). Using that works for me on both versions 11.01 and 10.4.1 on Windows 7. $\endgroup$
    – JimB
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 18:05
  • $\begingroup$ I don't think so, with Normal distribution works with ≈ $\endgroup$
    – Francesco Coghi
    Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 8:29

1 Answer 1

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$Version

(*  "11.0.1 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (September 21, 2016)"  *)

smin = -6; ds = 1/10; c = 6; counter = 10;

As a workaround, you can either use NExpectation

NExpectation[x/c*E^((smin + (counter - 1)*ds)*x/c), 
 x \[Distributed] PoissonDistribution[c]]

(*  0.0137666  *)

Or take the Mean of the TransformedDistribution

Mean@TransformedDistribution[x/c*E^((smin + (counter - 1)*ds)*x/c), 
  x \[Distributed] PoissonDistribution[c]]

(*  E^(-(137/20) + 6/E^(17/20))  *)

% // N

(*  0.0137666  *)

EDIT: Works on an earlier version

$Version

(*  "10.4.1 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (April 11, 2016)"  *)

smin = -6; ds = 1/10; c = 6; counter = 10;

Expectation[x/c*E^((smin + (counter - 1)*ds)*x/c), 
 x \[Distributed] PoissonDistribution[c]]

(*  E^(-(137/20) + 6/E^(17/20))  *)

% // N

(*  0.0137666  *)
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  • $\begingroup$ I just tried with NExpectation and I get the same problem. Now I try with the second method you proposed. Thanks $\endgroup$
    – Francesco Coghi
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 15:10
  • $\begingroup$ @FrancescoCoghi - what version and OS are you using? $\endgroup$
    – Bob Hanlon
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 15:15
  • $\begingroup$ I'm on windows10 with Mathematica 10.4 $\endgroup$
    – Francesco Coghi
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 15:20

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