Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-36/2/c/solution

Apply to the observed process and call the result . Then
Its only nonzero covariance lags are
Seek an invertible moving-average factor with . Matching these covariances requires and . Solving gives
These are the three requested parameters in the positive-sign moving-average convention. For nonzero total noise variance,
so and the larger quadratic root gives the invertible factor.
Covariance matching alone would not identify arbitrary processes in distribution. To obtain an actual representation on the given space, define
The series converges in L2. The spectrum of is , so this filtered process has constant spectrum and is white noise. Thus
This is the invertible ARMA factorization of an AR(1)-plus-noise process. If , it reduces to AR(1); if , it reduces to white noise. If and , then , the common factor cancels and . Therefore the orders are at most (1,1); no unnecessarily minimal-order claim is made in those degenerate cases.

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