We use the following standard planar Brownian motion facts: its exit probability distribution is harmonic measure; conformal maps preserve that probability distribution after an increasing time change; and the Poisson kernel for the upper half-plane gives its real-boundary exit density. For rough hulls the boundary is interpreted through prime ends, with boundary correspondence at harmonic-measure-almost every exit point. This avoids imposing a smoothness or local-connectedness assumption on .
Under , the exit event through corresponds to a measurable set of boundary images. It is bounded: the mapping-out function extends by Schwarz reflection along the real line outside a sufficiently large interval enclosing , and its boundary near infinity corresponds to the original real boundary near infinity. All prime ends representing therefore have images in a bounded interval. The boundary correspondence assertion can equivalently be formulated using the almost-everywhere limits of ; changing null sets does not change 's measure.
Write . The hydrodynamic normalization at infinity gives and . By conformal invariance of planar Brownian motion and the Poisson kernel for the upper half-plane,
On the bounded set , the integrand multiplied by tends uniformly to one. Therefore the limit exists and is finite:
This is the harmonic capacity from infinity in the upper half-plane with the normalization ; it is different from half-plane capacity. If real boundary points are retained in the definition of , include their boundary images in as well; the argument is unchanged.
For the scaling statement, Brownian scaling says that started from is again standard planar Brownian motion. The exit event scales with the hull, so
Set , multiply by and take the limit. It follows that
The same conclusion follows geometrically from and the formula above.
Write and, for , let be the filled image hull . The half-plane-capacity composition rule gives
The Loewner local growth property says that these mapped increments shrink uniformly on bounded time intervals: for every ,
Using diameter instead of radius is equivalent, since a nonempty compact H-hull has its closure meeting the real axis. This is a condition on the increments after mapping out the past, not merely on the Euclidean size of in the original domain.
For fixed , the nonempty compact sets , , are nested as decreases. Their diameters tend to zero by Loewner local growth property. The nested-compact-set property gives a single intersection point, and its imaginary part is zero because lies in a real-centred disc of radius tending to zero. Define the Loewner transform by
One may restrict the intersection to sufficiently small . Every point of is within of when .
Here is a direct proof of continuity, using the permitted displacement estimate. Fix and put . Take and a point . Set . The hull composition rule puts , while the displacement estimate gives
Since is within of , let , taking , to obtain
Use a slightly larger fixed time interval if is its endpoint. Both terms tend to zero with . This proves continuity from both sides, and indeed uniform continuity on every compact time interval. The real boundary value is obtained as a limit; evaluating the displacement estimate directly on a possibly rough boundary is unnecessary.
The Loewner correspondence theorem states that a capacity- increasing hull family with Loewner local growth property has the unique continuous real Loewner driving function just defined, and its mapping-out functions solve the Chordal Loewner equation
For each , this solution is taken up to its maximal lifetime; is precisely the set of points whose lifetimes exceed . Conversely a continuous real driver gives such a hull family through this ordinary differential equation. A continuous driver alone need not have a continuous Loewner trace; that additional assertion is part of the trace theory of SLE, not of the deterministic correspondence theorem.
A continuous process is chordal Schramm–Loewner evolution with parameter from to infinity when , its filled past generates these capacity- hulls, and their Loewner driving function is
with standard real Brownian motion. The filling includes bounded components cut off from infinity. Equivalently its Loewner trace is the continuous extension of . This last boundary limit is the trace-existence input for SLE.
Fix and scale space and time together:
The half-plane capacity of is by part (a). Differentiation gives
By Brownian scaling, is again standard Brownian motion, so the new driver has the same law as the old one. Uniqueness of the Chordal Loewner equation transfers this equality to the hulls and their continuous Loewner traces. Thus
This is capacity-parametrized scale invariance of a Loewner chain. It includes , when the driver is zero and the trace is the deterministic vertical slit .
The Brownian reflection principle and Brownian scaling give
where has the standard normal distribution. Combine part (c) with the allowed Gaussian tail bound to obtain
This is the Brownian martingale proof of Gaussian concentration. It proves the intended Gaussian concentration inequality. The denominator printed in the initial bound is , whereas the gradient hypothesis and part (c) give . The stronger printed bound is false in general. For a concrete counterexample, take , , and . At ,
where the first strict inequality follows by integrating the decreasing normal density over . The rightmost term is the printed bound. Thus the square on is a necessary source correction, rather than a change of proof technique.
Put . The hitting times are finite almost surely by recurrence of planar Brownian motion, and increase with . At , the position is . By the Strong Markov property, Brownian scaling, and rotational invariance of planar Brownian motion, the future process
is a standard planar Brownian motion started at , independent of . The random rotation does not change its conditional law, since that law is rotationally invariant.
The first time this rescaled process reaches radius corresponds to the original time . Its continuous argument starts at zero and equals the increment of the original winding angle. Hence
For any ordered finite collection of levels, apply this assertion successively. Earlier winding values are measurable at the current hitting time, so all increments are independent and their laws depend only on the level differences. This proves the Lévy process property of winding at logarithmic radial passage levels.
One can also verify stochastic continuity and identify this process. The logarithmic-radius and argument martingales have the common clock
The same Cauchy-Riemann equations calculation as in part (a), applied locally to the logarithm and joined along the continuous argument, gives independent Brownian motions such that and . This clock diverges: if it had a finite limit, convergence of martingales with finite total quadratic variation would make converge to a finite value, forcing the clock integral itself to diverge.
Thus, with , we have . The Brownian first-passage Laplace transform is . It follows either from the Exponential martingale for Brownian motion stopped at , or from the one-dimensional exit equation. Conditioning on the independent process gives
So this is a symmetric Cauchy process, with level parameter . The formula implies stochastic continuity at zero and, by stationary increments, everywhere. Under the usual definition requiring càdlàg paths, use the right-continuous passage clock . It agrees with for each fixed level almost surely, and is the càdlàg modification. This distinction concerns simultaneous passage levels and does not alter any increment law.
For , define . Differentiating the Chordal Loewner equation gives
Brownian scaling makes have the original driver law. The corresponding hull is , so
The time scaling applies to the whole coupled hull process. In particular, the joint law of swallowing times satisfies .
Thus . A pair is determined up to dilation by : dilating by turns it into . Define . Then
A compact H-hull is a bounded set that is closed relative to the complex upper half-plane and whose complement is a simply connected domain. Its Euclidean closure is compact in ; “compact” here does not require separation from the real axis. One may equivalently describe the closed hull in , with its real-boundary convention understood. Its mapping-out function is the unique conformal map to with hydrodynamic normalization at infinity.
Use the capacity convention . A chordal Schramm–Loewner evolution from to infinity is the hull family of the Chordal Loewner equation
where is a real standard Brownian motion and . The points with interior-point swallowing time for a Loewner chain at most constitute . For each , maps conformally onto and has expansion . The case is the deterministic vertical-slit chain.
First identify the relevant transformed Loewner driving functions directly. For , define
Differentiation gives . Its initial value is , its domain is , and its expansion is . Thus its driving function is , by uniqueness of the differential equation and of the hydrodynamically normalized map. Brownian scaling proves
This is capacity-parametrized scale invariance of a Loewner chain.
For a fixed time , map the future remaining domains by . The corresponding hulls are specified without any boundary-image ambiguity by
Their mapping-out functions are
At this is the identity. Differentiating at a point in its domain yields
The Laurent series is . Hence the transformed Loewner driver is exactly , with the original capacity clock unchanged. This proves the composition rule for chordal Loewner driving functions, rather than assuming an identification of transforms.
The Brownian motion increments after are independent of its past and have the original law. Since past hulls are measurable functions of the past Loewner driver, conditionally on the past, the centered mapped future is an independent copy of the original chain. This is the domain Markov property of a chordal Loewner chain. At an almost surely finite stopping time it follows likewise from the Strong Markov property.
For the converse, a precise class is essential: take capacity-parametrized Loewner chains generated by a continuous real Loewner driving function , with , and require the two displayed hull properties, including independence from the entire hull past in the domain Markov property. Within this class they characterize , for some .
To see why the hull assertions determine the Loewner driver assertions, the hull domains determine their normalized maps uniquely. For any surviving point,
The left time derivative suffices for , since is continuous. A sufficiently high point survives up to any given finite time, so points , , suffice to reconstruct the Loewner driver locally and measurably from the hull past. Thus the driving-function reconstruction for a chordal Loewner chain identifies the two past filtrations and makes the preceding scale and composition computations reversible.
The domain Markov property therefore gives stationary independent increments for . Its continuity makes it a continuous Lévy process. Its classification gives : in the Lévy–Khintchine formula continuity removes the jump measure, leaving characteristic function . Driver scaling would turn the drift into , so invariance for every forces . The diffusion coefficient is unchanged. This proves the scale-and-domain-Markov characterization of SLE with its regularity and parametrization hypotheses stated explicitly.
Let be the given Brownian motion law on . Choose and an integer with . For the largest adjacent level- increment , Brownian scaling and the Markov inequality give
where . These probabilities are summable, so the Borel-Cantelli lemma gives a finite random such that for every , after absorbing the finitely many exceptional levels.
For , choose with . Their left dyadic approximations at level differ by at most two grid steps; each finer approximation adds at most one adjacent increment. Continuity and dyadic increment chaining therefore give
Thus paths are -Hölder and hence -Hölder on . This direct proof supplies the relevant Brownian Hölder regularity, also obtainable from the Kolmogorov continuity theorem.
The full-measure subset is measurable in , because continuity identifies its seminorm with a countable supremum:
Its finiteness event is a countable union of countable intersections of coordinate-measurable events. The sigma-algebra specified on is precisely the trace of the coordinate sigma-algebra on . Define for trace-measurable ; equivalently restrict the Brownian law to its full-measure subset. Since , no renormalization is needed, and all finite-dimensional coordinate laws are unchanged. This is the required probability measure:
The construction uses the requested coordinate sigma-algebra and makes no assumption about a separable Hölder-norm topology.
For , Brownian scaling and the bijection of give , or . The supremum is a measurable extended random variable because continuity allows the supremum over rational times, and .
For , the function must satisfy for every , so it is constant on . Letting and shows , hence . This scaling argument alone does not decide the mass at zero; part (d) does.
Taking in (c) and using that has no atom at gives
This is the distribution function of the Brownian first-passage time; (b) ensures that it is a proper probability distribution. Comparing these distribution functions gives the Brownian scaling identity for .
For an integer , set and successively hit the levels . The Strong Markov property at these finite stopping times and spatial translation imply that
are independent random variables, each with the probability distribution of . Thus, for independent copies ,
Therefore
The paper's definition is the strictly stable distribution convention, with no centering term, a special case of a stable distribution.
Put and . The constant-in-time coefficient on is previsible, so the ratio minus is . Since , continuity and the dominated convergence theorem imply
The Itô isometry gives . For , use the Chebyshev inequality and the normal distribution of to obtain
First let , then ; the normal distribution has no atom at zero. This proves
No independence between and the denominator is needed.
The first estimate suggested by the hint is valid: Brownian scaling and the Gamma function give . The second hint requires care about the placement of its expectation: with , the interpretation is correct by the Jensen inequality and the Itô isometry, whereas the interpretation is false with constant . For the latter interpretation, the Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequality supplies a constant instead. One can see the obstruction with a Brownian motion stopped on exiting : if is that Brownian exit time, then , , and strict Jensen inequality gives .
This obstruction also survives the continuity condition on . On a long finite interval approximate by a continuous adapted process equal to until and decreasing linearly to during the next units of time, and take its initial value to be by inserting a short continuous ramp before starting the exit experiment. The Itô isometry controls these approximations, and letting the interval length tend to infinity recovers the strict inequality above; hence some bounded continuous adapted example also violates the latter interpretation with constant . The direct proof avoids relying on this ambiguous hint.
The Loewner local growth property gives a continuous Loewner driving function, and we normalize . Mapping out an initial hull transforms the future driver to . The Conformal Markov property of SLE therefore gives stationary increments and independent increments.
Consequently is a continuous Lévy process. In the Lévy–Khintchine formula, continuity excludes its jump measure, so its only possible components are a deterministic linear drift and Brownian motion:
Conformal invariance under dilations gives . Comparing the expectations of these Gaussian random variables yields for every , hence . The Brownian term already has the required law by Brownian scaling. Therefore the characterization of the SLE driving function is
The case is the constant zero driver. No reflection-symmetry assumption is needed to remove the drift; scaling suffices.
If is driven by , then the mapping-out functions of
are
and their driver is . By Brownian scaling, is Brownian. Thus has the same law as , and uniqueness of the Chordal Loewner equation proves
This is the Scaling invariance of SLE.
Let . By Brownian scaling, is standard Brownian motion. Substituting into the Bessel equation gives
Weak uniqueness for the Bessel equation shows that is a Bessel process of dimension started at . This is the Scaling invariance of a Bessel process.
For Schramm–Loewner evolution in , the Scaling invariance of SLE states that, for every ,
has the same law as . The scaled Loewner driving function is . Since , the Brownian scaling identity proves the claim.
The Conformal Markov property of SLE states that, conditionally on the hull through time , the future hull mapped by is an independent in . More precisely,
has driving function . The stationary increments and independent increments of Brownian motion show that is independent of and has the same law as . The deterministic correspondence between continuous drivers and Loewner chains completes the proof.
For every , define
The Brownian scaling theorem makes a standard Brownian motion, and substitution shows that satisfies the same coupled Bessel process equations from initial values . Both hitting times are divided by , so their order is unchanged. Taking or comparing any two pairs with the same ratio proves that depends only on .
By Brownian scaling,
where has the standard three-dimensional multivariate normal distribution. The right-hand side tends to zero in probability, since has no atom at the origin. Part (d) gives almost-sure convergence to , which also implies convergence in probability to . Uniqueness of a limit in probability therefore gives almost surely. Hence almost surely, proving the transience of Brownian motion in dimension at least three in dimension three.
If is a Bessel process of dimension started at and , then
is a Bessel process of dimension started at . This follows from Brownian scaling in the stochastic differential equation and uniqueness in law.
Scaling invariance of SLE 2026-09-24
For every , if is , then has the same law. Its driving function is , which has the same law as by Brownian scaling.
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.