The empirical distribution function is
If is a standard Brownian motion on , the standard Brownian bridge is . It is a centred Gaussian process with continuous paths, endpoints zero, and covariance
The F-Brownian bridge is the time-changed Gaussian process . Its covariance is , exactly the covariance of the empirical distribution process .
The Donsker theorem for empirical distribution functions states that for every cumulative distribution function ,
Thus this is a function-space central limit theorem, not merely convergence of each finite collection of evaluations. The limit is a tight centred Gaussian process. No continuity of is required for this statement; a jump of can give a jump of .
For precision, is generally nonseparable, and the finite-sample process need not be a Borel-measurable random element for its norm topology. The displayed convergence in distribution has the usual empirical-process interpretation: for every bounded continuous real functional , the outer expectation and inner expectation of converge to . The outer expectation is the infimum of expectations of measurable majorants, and the inner expectation is its negative applied to . For measurable real statistics this gives ordinary convergence in distribution. The limit is tight and separably supported: maps the separable space of continuous bridge paths continuously into .
The map is Lipschitz, since
Consequently the continuous mapping theorem applied to the Donsker theorem for empirical distribution functions gives . The statistic on the left is measurable: both and are right-continuous, so its supremum equals the supremum over rational .
If is continuous, its limits at and are zero and one. The intermediate value theorem therefore shows that contains , even when is not strictly increasing. A continuous Brownian bridge is zero at its endpoints, so pathwise
We obtain the Kolmogorov-Smirnov theorem in the required form:
Continuity of is what makes the limit independent of the unknown cumulative distribution function.
Choose with . The law of has no atoms. For example, the Brownian reflection principle and conditioning a Brownian motion on its endpoint give for : the reflected endpoint density at zero is the normal density at , divided by its value at zero. Hence both one-sided maxima have continuous laws, and an atom of would require an atom of one of them. Also , since is nondegenerate. Thus such quantiles give the desired limiting coverage.
An asymptotic simultaneous confidence band is
Indeed, because , the event that for every is precisely . Its probability tends to . This is simultaneous coverage over all real , rather than separate pointwise confidence intervals.
For any finite list , the random vector has a multivariate normal distribution, since it is a linear image of a vector of Brownian motion coordinates. The Brownian covariance kernel and linearity of covariance give
The independence of uncorrelated jointly normal variables implies that is independent of . Extending from finite-coordinate cylinder events by independence extended from generating pi-systems proves
Thus the Brownian bridge is independent of its endpoint. Its covariance kernel is , confirming that is the standard Brownian bridge. This is the Brownian bridge independence from its endpoint property.
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov theorem states that, for continuous ,
where is a Brownian bridge; the finite-sample law is also independent of continuous . To test , compute
and reject when exceeds the appropriate null quantile.
If , then . If , Gaussian conditional expectation for the Brownian bridge between and gives
The Fokker-Planck equation corresponds to the Itô diffusion
absorbed at and reflected at .
For , an Euler--Maruyama proposal is
If , kill the path. If and , an endpoint-only test can miss a crossing. Conditional on the endpoints, the local Brownian bridge crossing probability is
Kill the path with this probability; otherwise impose reflection at by replacing an overshoot with and set . Repeated reflection handles very rare multiple overshoots, and the approximation converges as .
A finite-horizon form of Girsanov theorem is as follows. If is predictable, almost surely, and its stochastic exponential is a true martingale of mean one, then under the probability the process
is Brownian motion. The same conclusion holds on the completed natural filtration, since a strictly positive density gives equivalent probabilities.
Part (b) establishes precisely the required density martingale and integrand . Therefore
In particular it is the requested local martingale. Equivalently, under , solves , the Brownian bridge drift coefficient toward at time one. Keeping avoids the singular endpoint in this density change.
In the Lévy construction of Brownian motion, each level is a continuous piecewise linear sum of tents with disjoint interiors. Its supremum norm is therefore the largest absolute tent height, not the sum of the heights. With the standard construction's height standard deviation ,
Part (c) makes finite, and part (a) proves almost sure uniform convergence to a continuous path on . The separately chosen linear endpoint term completes the construction; its Gaussian finite-dimensional distributions and covariance must also be checked to identify the limit as Brownian motion. Independent copies on successive unit intervals extend it to the half-line.
Figure 1.
Disjoint dyadic tents and successive continuous Lévy approximations
. Details.
The source calls a variance. Literally using that variance would give height standard deviation instead. The same maximum estimate still proves uniform convergence, since , but the resulting covariance is not that of the standard Lévy construction. The standard midpoint Brownian bridge variance on an interval of length is . Thus continuity follows under either summable scaling, while Brownian covariance requires the correct variance.