Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 31 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Work with the filtration relative to which the given Brownian motion or Markov jump process has its stated properties. All martingale assertions below concern every finite time interval; no infinite-horizon uniform integrability is claimed.
First put . The solution has the representation , and the Itô isometry givesThus is a square-integrable martingale, not just a local martingale. Applying the Itô formula to its square cancels the finite-variation term and givesThe expected squared integrand integral is bounded byTherefore both and are true square-integrable martingales. This is the bounded diffusion coefficient gives square martingales criterion. Only bounded measurability of the coefficient and existence of the stipulated solution have been used.
For the jump process, the Lévy kernel of a Markov jump process uses displacements: a mark sends the state to . Let and . The bounded total rate prevents explosion; the number of jumps on a finite interval is dominated by a rate- Poisson process. Let record the jump displacements. Its predictable compensator of a jump measure isThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives , so the zero first moment is absolutely meaningful. Since that moment vanishes,The compensated integral is a square-integrable martingale: its isometry follows first for bounded marks from conditional compensation and then by truncation in the squared-integrand norm.
The jump version of the square Itô formula is . HenceThe first term is square integrable becauseThe second is an integrable martingale: the expected absolute uncompensated jump-square sum is at most , and the compensator identity, multiplied by any bounded event known at an earlier time, makes its increments conditionally centered. Values and agree for Lebesgue-almost every time, so the displayed compensation is exactly the one defining . Thus and are true martingales in the jump case as well. A fourth moment of the jumps is unnecessary; in particular we have not asserted that this must be square integrable. This is centered finite-rate jump kernel gives square martingales.