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Fix $T<\infty$ and a standard $d$-dimensional Brownian motion $B$ starting at zero. Let $D_n$ be deterministic nested finite partitions of $[0,T]$ with mesh tending to zero; dyadic partitions are the basic example. Let $B^n$ be the polygonal interpolation through the partition values and put ${\mathbf{B}}^n=S_2(B^n)$. The limit is enhanced Brownian motion, with incrementsHere the integral is a Stratonovich integral. In terms of Itô integrals,Its symmetric part is $\frac{1}{2}{B}_{s,t}^{\otimes 2}$, while its antisymmetric part is Lévy area,These identities and splitting the integral at an intermediate time give the Chen identity, so $\mathbf{B}$ has values in $G^2({\mathbb{R}}^d)$.

A precise nested polygonal approximation of Brownian rough paths statement is: for every $0<\alpha <1/2$,where the rough path metric used here isIn particular, for each $2<p<3$, choosing $1/p<\alpha <1/2$ gives convergence in the inhomogeneous $p$-variation rough path metric. The limiting signed area is the Lévy area, and the limiting full second level is Stratonovich, not Itô. This distinction is necessary: a polygonal lift has the prescribed symmetric second level, whereas an Itô lift would lack half the quadratic-variation correction.

Here is a proof sketch emphasizing the nested martingale structure. SetA Brownian bridge between two prescribed endpoints has the affine interpolation as conditional mean. ConsequentlyFor $i\ne j$ the coordinate processes remain independent when their respective partition values are conditioned on. Approximating the Itô integral by its left sums, conditioning each product, and then taking its $L^2$ limit givesIndeed each conditioned factor is its polygonal interpolation, and their sums converge to the ordinary integral of those piecewise linear functions. For a fixed pair $s,t$, the right side is therefore a martingale in the refinement index $n$. It is not being asserted to be a martingale in physical time; polygonal interpolation uses the right endpoint of its current cell.

The union of the partitions is dense. Continuity of $B$ implies that ${\mathcal{G}}_{\infty }=\sigma ({\bigcup }_n{\mathcal{G}}_n)$ contains the full Brownian path and its stochastic integrals, up to completion. The martingale convergence theorem for conditional expectations therefore yields convergence of $B_t^n$ and all off-diagonal ${\mathbb{B}}_{s,t}^{n,ij}$ at every fixed pair, almost surely and in $L^q$ for finite $q$. Simultaneously it holds for a countable dense collection of pairs. The diagonal terms must be handled separately:They are not conditional expectations of the diagonal Brownian second level: the latter would also contain a conditional variance.

Pointwise convergence alone is insufficient for the rough path metric. The Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequalities, Brownian scaling and Gaussian increment moments give, for arbitrarily large $q$,Equivalently, using the homogeneous norm on $G^2$, the $q$-th moment of the Carnot-Carathéodory distance of an increment is bounded by $C_q|t-s{|}^{q/2}$. The metric form of the Kolmogorov continuity theorem, with $q$ chosen large, gives for every $\beta <1/2$ a random $K_{\beta }$ having all finite moments such thatConditioning these bounds givesThe diagonal bounds follow by squaring the first bound. The two conditional-expectation processes are nonnegative martingales; the Doob Lp maximal inequality makes their suprema over $n$ finite almost surely, with all needed moments. Thus all the polygonal lifts have a common random bound at exponent $\beta$.

These bounds and the Chen identity give joint equicontinuity of the increments as functions of $(s,t)$. Convergence on the dense collection of pairs consequently gives uniform convergence of both levels on the time triangle. Take $\alpha <\beta <1/2$. For either level $k=1,2$, with $M$ a common bound and ${\epsilon }_n$ its uniform difference, interpolation givesThis proves the stated Hölder rough path metric convergence. Finally, for a partition $D$, the $k$-th level difference satisfiesbecause $\alpha p>1$. Taking the appropriate powers and suprema proves $p$-variation convergence too. Nesting is what permits the conditional-expectation martingale proof; without nesting one instead needs direct approximation estimates.

Letting $t\to \infty$ in the Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequalities with exponent two gives absolute constants $c,C>0$ such thatSince $[X]$ is nondecreasing, $\mathbb{E}[X{]}_{\infty }={\sup }_t\mathbb{E}[X{]}_t$. Thus one of the two quantities in the question is finite exactly when the other is.

Let ${\tau }_n$ localize $M$. The Itô isometry givesThus the stopped variables are bounded in $L^2$, and localization plus weak compactness shows that $M$ is a true martingale. The Itô formula applied to $f(x)=x^2$ givesAfter localization this is a martingale; the Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequalities and $\mathbb{E}[M{]}_t<\infty$ supply the required local integrability, so it is a true martingale.

For $p\ge 2$ and a continuous local martingale starting at zero, the Itô formula for $|X{|}^p$, the Doob Lp maximal inequality and Hölder's inequality yield $\mathbb{E}{\sup }_{s\le t}|X_s{|}^p\le C_p\mathbb{E}⟨X{⟩}_t^{p/2}$. One possible constant is $C_p=[p(p-1)(p/(p-1){)}^p/2{]}^{p/2}$. Stop at increasing absolute-value levels to remove an initial boundedness assumption. This proves the upper half of the Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequalities in this range.