Strong existence Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-31
A stochastic differential equation has strong existence for specified coefficients and initial data if a strong stochastic solution can be constructed on every prescribed stochastic basis carrying the required initial variable and driving Brownian motion. This existence assertion is distinct from pathwise uniqueness and from a definition of the solution itself.
Strong solution of a stochastic differential equation Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
A strong solution is adapted to the filtration of a prescribed driving Brownian motion on a prescribed probability space and satisfies the stochastic integral equation almost surely.
If is a Lévy process and an independent subordinator, then is a Lévy process. Conditional on the clock, increments of over disjoint clock intervals are independent; averaging over the independent stationary increments of the clock gives the same properties for . If , its characteristic function is . For standard Brownian motion, , so this is the clock's Laplace transform at .
For , the support of a measure of enhanced Brownian motion is the rough-path closure of path signatures of paths in the Cameron-Martin space of Wiener measure. Polygonal convergence gives one inclusion. For the reverse inclusion, decompose Brownian motion into its polygonal interpolation and independent pinned bridges. The bridge enhancement becomes small in probability as the mesh decreases, while every finite-dimensional neighborhood of the polygonal vertices has positive Gaussian probability. Rough path translation then gives positive probability in every ball around a prescribed control path signature.
Start traps at a unit-intensity Poisson random measure in Euclidean space and attach mutually independent Brownian motions, independent of the initial measure. For a deterministic target path , independently thin initial positions according to whether their marked path comes within radius one of the target by time . The retention probability integrates, by the Tonelli theorem, to the expected volume of the sausage along . Symmetry of Brownian motion makes this the expected volume of the sausage along . The Poisson zero-count probability proves the displayed survival formula. This derives the formula directly from independent thinning, without assuming a separate marking or displacement theorem.
Tanaka equation Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
With for and for , the equation starting at zero has uniqueness in law but not pathwise uniqueness. For existence, take a Brownian motion and set ; the Lévy characterization of Brownian motion and associativity of stochastic integration give . Every solution has quadratic variation and hence the Brownian motion law. Both and are solutions driven by the same , since the time spent at zero is zero and away from zero. Using instead would allow the constant solution and invalidate this uniqueness-in-law example.
A bead in a liquid keeps undergoing Brownian motion even when an optical trap holds its average position fixed. For a stationary harmonic optical trap in thermal equilibrium at absolute temperature , the equipartition theorem assigns mean potential energy to this one quadratic coordinate. With the Boltzmann constant and at equilibrium,
At the same temperature, quadrupling the spring constant divides the position variance by four and the standard deviation by two. The Boltzmann factor gives the complete equilibrium probability density function, a Gaussian distribution:
The prefactor makes ; its second moment is . The probability density function has units of inverse length, and its area gives probability. This density is exact for the ideal quadratic model. In a finite optical trap it approximates the occupied well when thermal excursions remain within the harmonic region and escape is negligible during observation. Driven motion, appreciable nonconservative forces or laser heating need not give this equilibrium density.
Figure 1.
Thermal force calibration model: exact Gaussian position densities for relative trap stiffnesses 1, 2 and 4 at a common temperature
. Details.
Here , and . The plotted density per unit is . Each curve has total area one; their dimensionless standard deviations are , and . The curves are exact model densities, not noisy experimental data.
Brownian motion becomes a measuring tool: a calibrated position measurement supplies , and the known temperature supplies . Once is known, a slowly applied constant external force shifts the mean by , so in the same harmonic range. Fluctuations therefore calibrate the conversion from displacement to force. Svoboda and Block used this equipartition theorem method when calibrating their bead traps. [ref].
For the example stiffness and , and . Using a variance measured in uncalibrated detector units would not determine that physical stiffness. Measurement noise, finite exposure time, drift and insufficient sampling of the correlated Brownian motion can bias the estimate; record positions over many optical trap relaxation times and account for the detector response. The deterministic relaxation curve above describes relaxation without thermal forcing; an individual thermal trajectory continues to fluctuate.
Thermal motion 2026-10-18
Thermal motion is microscopic random motion associated with a system's temperature; Brownian motion makes its effects on larger suspended grains visible.
Thermal noise 2026-10-18
Fluctuations associated with nonzero temperature, including mechanical Brownian motion and electrical noise.
The radial part of three-dimensional Brownian motion started away from the origin is a Bessel process of dimension three. The radial Laplacian is , so the Itô formula gives the displayed equation. The radial martingale has unit quadratic variation rate and is Brownian motion by the Lévy characterization of Brownian motion. The reciprocal is a local martingale. Stopping it on gives . Letting shows that zero is not hit.
Time inversion of Brownian motion Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
If is Brownian motion, then
is also Brownian motion. Its covariance is , and continuity at zero follows from almost surely.
Transience of Brownian motion in dimension at least three Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Brownian motion in is transient for : its distance from the origin tends to infinity almost surely. In dimension three, the positive local martingale and Brownian scaling give a short proof.
It is a dimension-dependent long-time property of Brownian motion.
For , the drift is globally Lipschitz and bounded. Solve its equation strongly for the prescribed Brownian motion, and stop at the first hit of . Local uniqueness makes these stopped solutions agree up to the larger threshold; their stopping times increase as the threshold decreases. With , Itô's formula for gives on every finite horizon. Hence the patched lifetime is infinite. Localization away from zero proves pathwise uniqueness of the positive global solution. Uniqueness before a stopping time refers to the stopped solution, not to arbitrary unconstrained continuations afterward.
For standard Brownian motion started at zero, choose an independent radius with , , and stop on first reaching that radius. Rotational invariance of Brownian motion makes the conditional exit position uniform on each sphere. Mixing with radius density gives the uniform probability distribution on the ball. In dimension one, the conditional sign has probabilities . The stopped point samples volume measure even though each conditional exit law is supported on a boundary.
A progressively measurable real diffusion coefficient of absolute value one gives a continuous local martingale with quadratic variation . With zero initial value, Lévy characterization of Brownian motion makes the solution standard Brownian motion. This applies to every weak solution of . The Brownian law does not imply that the solution equals the given driver or establish strong existence for a discontinuous coefficient.
Up-and-out power claim 2026-10-14
An up-and-out power claim pays a power of the terminal stock price provided an upper barrier has never been reached. In the Black-Scholes model, set and , where , and . The risk-neutral pricing value is
Here is the standard normal distribution function. Weighting the Brownian motion endpoint by changes the logarithmic drift to ; the finite-horizon maximum of Brownian motion with drift then supplies the survival factor.
Upper-half-plane harmonic measure of the positive half-axis Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For planar Brownian motion started at with , the probability that its first hit of the real axis lies in is
This is the bounded harmonic function in the upper half-plane with boundary values zero on the negative half-axis and one on the positive half-axis.
Wiener measure Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-28
Wiener measure is the probability distribution of Brownian motion on a continuous-path space, usually or .
Wiener sausage 2026-10-07
A Wiener sausage is the region swept out by a ball of fixed radius along a Brownian motion path. A deterministic continuous displacement gives the variant . On each bounded time interval it has finite expected volume: the region lies inside a ball whose radius is the path's maximum displacement plus , and the Brownian maximum has Gaussian tail bounds and finite moments of every order.
Wiener theorem 2026-10-14
There exists a probability measure on under which the coordinate process is standard Brownian motion, and its distribution there is unique. Construct consistent centered Gaussian finite-dimensional laws with covariance and use the Kolmogorov extension theorem. The fourth increment moment supplies a continuous modification by the Kolmogorov continuity theorem. Its independent increments and normal increment distributions are unchanged. Uniqueness follows because coordinate evaluations at rational times generate the Borel sigma-algebra of continuous-path space.