Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-probability-measure-and-martingales-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021/1/b/iv/solution

The L2-bounded martingale convergence theorem states that a martingale with converges both almost surely and with convergence in L2 to a square-integrable random variable. Its hypotheses hold because . Thus there is almost surely with both kinds of convergence. Alternatively, the martingale convergence theorem gives the almost sure convergence, and the bound gives convergence in L2 by the dominated convergence theorem.[ref]
The calculation of the conditional expectation of the square is especially informative. The martingale property makes the cross term vanish in the square expansion, so
Subtracting this from gives
Taking expected values and iterating proves
By bounded convergence theorem, . The random variable inside this expected value is nonnegative, so it is zero almost surely; on this forces . Again by bounded convergence theorem, . Hence
This is the Bernoulli polarization martingale with update size . It also has an exact mean squared error: the terminal representation and the equality case for conditional second moments give

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