Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/iii/paper-29/4/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 29 4 b Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For and , the definition of the Radon-Nikodym derivative givesThe density is nonnegative and integrable; with the probability normalization used here its expectation is one. Henceso is a martingale. When , the Itô formula under Wiener measure givesThe first term is a continuous local martingale, by localization on compact space-time sets. Since is a martingale, uniqueness of the continuous semimartingale decomposition makes identically. The integrand is continuous in time along every continuous path, so for every , outside one common null event.
For each fixed , has a Gaussian distribution with strictly positive density everywhere on . Since is continuous, almost surely implies for every real . ThereforeIf the stated smoothness includes time zero, continuity extends the equation there. This is the backward heat equation. The full-support argument is needed to pass from an identity along Brownian paths to an equation at every spatial point.
New to topics? Read the docs here!