Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2004/iii/paper-30/6/a/solution

The differential operator without its potential is the diffusion generator of the d-dimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process
Its explicit solution defines its path law on . For the potential and initial function one, the Feynman-Kac formula gives the nonnegative path integral
The sign in the exponential is positive, because the PDE contains . One can first stop the diffusion in bounded balls, where the usual localized Feynman-Kac argument applies, and then examine finiteness of the resulting expectation. The critical quadratic potential for the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck generator below supplies that finiteness check.

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