On the Distributions of Scan Statistics of a Two-Dimensional Poisson Process

Given a two-dimensional Poisson process, X, with intensity λ, we are interested in the largest number of points, L, contained in a translate of a fixed scanning set, C, restricted to lie inside a rectangular area. The distribution of L is accurately approximated for rectangular scanning sets, using a technique that can be extended to higher dimensions. Reasonable approximations for non-rectangular scanning sets are also obtained using a simple correction of the rectangular result.