Blumenthal zero-one law 2026-10-07
For the completed natural Brownian filtration, every event in the germ sigma-field of Brownian motion has probability zero or one. Indeed, an event measurable at every positive time is independent of all increments after each such time. Letting that time decrease to zero and using path continuity makes the event independent of the entire Brownian path sigma-field. Since it is itself measurable in that sigma-field, its probability equals its square.
Brownian filtration 2026-10-05
A filtration is a Brownian filtration for when is an adapted process and each future increment is independent of . The natural filtration of a Brownian motion has this property. Arbitrary enlargement by future information need not preserve it.
Brownian martingale representation theorem Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-11-05
Let be the usual augmentation of the natural filtration of a standard Brownian motion . On a finite horizon , every has the representationfor a predictable process . Consequently every square-integrable martingale on has . The Itô isometry makes unique up to -almost everywhere equality. A proof first represents deterministic Gaussian exponentials, whose linear span is dense in L2 space, then uses the Itô isometry to close the class of represented terminal values.[ref]
Itō's representation theorem by Fabrice Baudoin. 2012 lecture, theorem and proof by density of stochastic exponentials
The natural-filtration qualification matters. In the filtration generated by independent Brownian motions , both are martingales, but cannot be an Itô integral against : its quadratic covariation with is zero, which would force the proposed integrand to vanish. A general Brownian filtration may therefore be too large.
In the completed natural Brownian filtration, a bounded continuously differentiable with bounded derivative satisfiesThe integrand is unique up to -almost everywhere equality. Gaussian integration by parts first gives the duality between the payoff and every square-integrable Itô integral. The Brownian martingale representation theorem then identifies the integrand as the projection of onto the predictable processes in the product space. This explains the conditional expectation in the formula, rather than a nonadapted terminal derivative.
With zero interest and zero risk premium, a manager whose current wealth lies between common-tangent contacts can improve expected utility maximization through a fair lottery paying those two values. The probability of is . In a Brownian filtration, replicating a bounded terminal lottery gives a nonnegative wealth martingale throughout.
Martingale representation theorem Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-11-05
A martingale representation theorem identifies driving martingales from which every martingale in a specified filtration can be reconstructed by stochastic integrals. The filtration and the class of integrable martingales are part of the assertion.
For the completed natural Brownian filtration, the Brownian martingale representation theorem gives for every square-integrable martingale, with a predictable integrand unique up to time-probability null sets. For example, . In a filtration generated by independent Rademacher random variables, predictable representation in a Rademacher filtration gives the discrete analogue. Adding an independent source of randomness to a Brownian filtration may require another driving martingale; it does not preserve representation by the original Brownian motion alone.
Natural Brownian filtration 2026-10-05
The natural Brownian filtration is the natural filtration generated by a Brownian motion. Its usual augmentation adds null events and makes it right-continuous; the Brownian martingale representation theorem holds for this augmented natural filtration. A larger Brownian filtration can preserve independence of future increments while containing additional randomness, so it need not have martingale representation with respect to the specified Brownian motion.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 23 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Under the specified risk-neutral measure, the Itô product rule and giveThus discounted traded zero-coupon bonds have zero drift. Assume the usual integrability and admissibility conditions that make discounted replicating values true martingales, not merely local martingales. If is an attainable financial payoff with , its self-financing portfolio value has terminal value and satisfiesMultiplying by yieldsThis proves the requested conditional pricing formula. In a Brownian filtration, the Martingale representation theorem realizes the discounted conditional expectation as a stochastic integral. If an available bond has nonzero Itô diffusion exposure, its holdings can match that integral, with the remaining value in the bank account, giving replication under the usual square-integrability conditions.
These attainability or market completeness hypotheses matter for a completely arbitrary contingent claim: existence of a risk-neutral measure alone need not imply a unique price for every unspanned financial payoff, and a zero-drift local martingale alone need not satisfy the displayed terminal expectation identity. In the general path-dependent Heath-Jarrow-Morton model, write the value as ; notation is justified only when the current short rate is a sufficient state for the financial payoff and dynamics.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 25 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The terminal variable is bounded and hence square-integrable. In the completed natural Brownian filtration, the Brownian martingale representation theorem says that any square-integrable -measurable variable admits a representationwith predictable and . Extend by zero after . Thus the requested constant and integrability areExpectation determines uniquely. If two integrands give the same representation, the Itô isometry gives . Consequently is unique up to -almost everywhere equality, rather than pointwise equality at every time. The corresponding integral martingales are indistinguishable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 41 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Assume and the usual Brownian filtration, so the single-risky-asset market is a complete market. With market price of risk , the normalized state-price density isThe Itô formula shows that is a local martingale for a self-financing portfolio. For nonnegative admissible wealth it is a supermartingale, yielding the state-price budget constraintEvery integrable nonnegative terminal claim with equality is attainable in the complete market, by the Brownian martingale representation theorem. Its wealth process is .
The Inada conditions and , together with strict concavity, make a decreasing map from onto . Pointwise optimization of gives the optimal terminal wealthwith scalar multiplier . The question assumes a multiplier giving the required budget; utility expectations must also be well defined.
For any admissible terminal wealth , the supporting-line inequality for a concave function givesTaking expectations and using the state-price budget constraint proves optimality:Strict concavity makes the optimal terminal wealth unique up to almost-sure equality.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 211 6 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Apply the Itô formula to . The backward equation cancels its drift, leavingBounded and make this Itô integral square-integrable on the finite horizon; in addition itself is bounded. Hence is a true martingale, not just a local martingale, and . Taking conditional expectations givesThe stock is understood to be adapted to the stated Brownian filtration, with its initial value fixed there. This is the Feynman-Kac formula in the zero-potential, zero-drift case.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 201 6 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the usual completed right-continuous Brownian filtration. The strict passage process is finite at every level on one probability-one event: finiteness at all integer levels from (a) suffices by monotonicity. Also almost surely by (b).
For each fixed , is a stopping time with . The Strong Markov property shows that the passage times above this level depend on a new independent standard Brownian motion. Thus for , is independent of the past at and has the same law as . Iteration gives independent increments and stationary increments in the level parameter. From (a) and fixed-level equality,For , this also proves continuity in probability at zero, sinceFinally, with , we have . This strict generalized inverse of a nondecreasing function is right-continuous: if , then for any we have , and eventually , which forces . Monotonicity gives the reverse bound. Monotonicity and local finiteness also give finite left limits. Hence is the Brownian first-passage subordinator, with càdlàg paths.
Now condition on this clock, which is independent of . For a deterministic partition , write and . Conditional on the clock these are independent centered Gaussian increments, with respective variances . ConsequentlyFactorization and dependence only on interval lengths prove independent increments and stationary increments for . For small , in probability, and independence and continuity of imply in probability. For example, bound its deviation probability by and then let and . Stationary increments give stochastic continuity at every deterministic level. Composition of the continuous path of with the nondecreasing càdlàg clock gives càdlàg paths for , and . ThusThis is subordination of a Lévy process. Using strict passage times ensures the required right-continuous path choice, despite their fixed-level equality with the non-strict times.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 201 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For a stopping time of a Brownian filtration, define the reflected stochastic processThe Brownian reflection at a stopping time form of the Brownian reflection principle states that is again standard Brownian motion. If , leave the path unchanged; the second branch is used only when .
For an almost surely finite , the Strong Markov property says that is a fresh Brownian motion independent of . Its negative has the same probability distribution, so reflecting the future preserves the full path probability distribution. Allowing follows by applying this argument to and restricting to each fixed finite time interval.
The drift coefficient and diffusion coefficient are Lipschitz continuity and have linear growth. The standard existence and pathwise uniqueness theorem for stochastic differential equations therefore supplies a unique global strong solution of a stochastic differential equation, adapted to the driving Brownian filtration.
Apply Itô's formula to . Its time derivative contributes and its Itô correction contributes , giving the required equation and initial value. HenceIn particular the solution stays positive. For , factor out and use independence and the normal law of :The exponential moment exists, so this conditional expectation is well-defined for every finite .
Fix a finite horizon and use the completed natural Brownian filtration. Martingale representation theorem states that every can be writtenwhere is predictable and is unique up to equality for almost every .
The Martingale representation theorem states that every square-integrable martingale in this filtration has a continuous version of the formwith the same integrability and uniqueness condition. The completed natural filtration has only null-set randomness at time zero, so is almost surely constant. The first statement gives the second by representing and taking conditional expectations; the second gives the first by taking .
There is also the local version: every local martingale in the Brownian filtration has a continuous version representable by a predictable, locally square-integrable integrand. The filtration restriction matters; an enlarged filtration with independent additional martingales need not have representation using alone.