Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/iii/paper-35/3/a/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 35 3 a Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let be the unit disc and normalize its positive Poisson kernel at the boundary point byIt is harmonic in . Let be the killed Brownian transition density, for planar Brownian motion with generator . The Doob h-transform has sub-Markov transition densityIts missing mass represents paths already absorbed at the distinguished boundary point. Equivalently, for a stopping time before exit from a compact subdomain, its law is weighted relative to ordinary killed Brownian motion by . These stopped laws are consistent and define a diffusion up to its lifetime. Its generator isThis is a rigorous Brownian motion conditioned to exit at a boundary point, not conditioning on an event of positive probability. Exhaustion of shows that its terminal boundary limit is ; its lifetime is finite. For example its expected lifetime from is , which is finite: the Green function vanishes linearly near the smooth boundary and cancels the Poisson-kernel singularity there, while its logarithmic singularity at is integrable.
One can also condition ordinary Brownian motion on exiting through an arc about , and then let its length decrease to zero. The conditional harmonic functions converge locally uniformly to . Thus their stopped conditional laws converge to this same diffusion. Both constructions specify the conditioning unambiguously.
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