Bernoulli polarization martingale

ID: bernoulli-polarization-martingale

Let , , and let be a binary random variable satisfying . Suppose is -measurable and is -measurable. The update
remains in and defines a bounded martingale. For example, take independent uniform random variables independent of the current filtration and set .
The binary identity gives
and hence
The L2-bounded martingale convergence theorem gives a terminal random variable with almost sure convergence and convergence in L2. Iteration followed by the bounded convergence theorem yields
Thus takes only and , and preservation of its expected value gives a Bernoulli distribution with parameter . The terminal conditional expectation representation gives the exact mean squared error
The finite-time paths can stay strictly inside while their limit lies entirely at the endpoints. The positive conditional variance in the interior makes permanent convergence to an interior value impossible.

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