Solution

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

Under Wiener measure, the endpoint has normal distribution . For and , the Gaussian integral is
Complete the square:
Evaluating the centered Gaussian gives . With the preceding prefactor, the critical quadratic potential for the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck generator solution is
The initial value is one. As a direct PDE check, write , where
Since and , these identities give precisely the required time derivative and spatial operator.
For , this is finite for every ; at it reduces to . If the parameter is allowed to be negative, the expectation is finite only for . At and beyond that time the quadratic coefficient in the endpoint Gaussian integral is nonnegative, so the integral diverges. A nonnegative classical solution on the entire half-line cannot then exist: stopping the Feynman-Kac martingale in balls and discarding its nonnegative boundary term bounds any such solution below by the truncated path expectations; their limit is infinite. Thus the printed global positive-solution premise implicitly requires the nonnegative parameter convention.

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