# how to decide when to generate a particle so that the resulting rate follows a poisson distribution

I am writing a simulator in which I am generating a flow of particle. I want this flow to follow a Poisson process, i.e. $\lambda$ particles are generated per second on average. So how to compute the time of the next particle generation? i.e. how to write the POI function below?

t = POI(lambda)
while true:
if time_now() >= t:
generate_a_particle()
t = t + POI(lambda)


According to this post (http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/18894/exponential-distribution-from-poisson), I think I should draw a random number $u$ from the $[0,\lambda]$ interval, and compute t so that $f_X(t)=u$, which gives $$t=\frac{Ln(\lambda/u)}{\lambda}$$

That would make POI be:

POI(lambda):
u = random(0,lambda)
return ln(lambda/u)/lambda


Is that correct?

-

The time $T$ to the next event in a Poisson process of rate $\lambda$ has an exponential distribution with rate $\lambda$, so that $P(T \le t) = 1 - e^{-\lambda t}$ for $t \ge 0$. By taking $T = \ln(\lambda/U)/\lambda$ where $U$ is uniform in $(0,\lambda)$, you get $P(T \le t) = P(\lambda/U \le e^{\lambda t}) = P(U/\lambda \ge e^{-\lambda t}) = 1 - e^{-\lambda t}$. So yes, this is correct.
It might be slightly simpler to take a uniform random variable $V$ in $(0,1)$ (corresponding to $U/\lambda$), and thus $T = -\ln(V)/\lambda$.
You should be aware that, depending on the pseudo-random number generator being used, the value returned for a random number in $(0,1)$ may be $0$ (and e.g. a 16-bit generator might return this once in every 65536 calls), which could cause a problem when you try to take the logarithm or the reciprocal of that. To avoid that, you might add some small positive number to your $U$ or $V$, or perhaps just discard a result of $0$ and try again.