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Glen_b
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This is pretty straightforward; we just use the relationship between the Poisson and the chi squared:

If $Y\sim \text{Poisson}(\lambda)$ and $X\sim \chi^2_{2(k+1)}$, for integer $k$, then

$$F_Y(k) = 1-F_{X}(2\lambda) \,.$$

As a result, $$\lambda = \frac{1}{2}\, F_{X}^{-1}(1-F_Y(k))\,.$$

For example, in R, let's try to find the value of $\lambda$ corresponding to $k=6$ and $\alpha=0.1$:

> alpha=.1;k=6
> qchisq(1-alpha,2*(k+1))/2
[1] 10.53207
> ppois(k,10.53207)
[1] 0.1000001

So $\lambda\approx 10.53207$.

Hopefully that will be fast enough for you.

Glen_b
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