Cylinder sigma-algebra Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-11-05
On a product space , the cylinder sigma-algebra is the smallest sigma-algebra making every coordinate projection measurable. Its generators ask finitely many coordinate questions. Every event in it depends on at most countably many coordinates: the collection of countably determined sets contains these generators and is closed under complements and countable unions. If is uncountable, the singleton consisting of the identically zero function is not such an event. Any countable coordinate test leaves an untested coordinate where a different function can be nonzero. Thus coordinate measurability alone need not capture every pathwise question.
Because is measurable for the cylinder sigma-algebra, membership in depends on only countably many coordinates . Its image in is a measurable linear subspace , and
By successively applying the finite-dimensional Gaussian regression formula, realize this Gaussian sequence as a lower-triangular linear transform of independent standard normal variables:
where every coordinate of the sum contains only finitely many terms. If some deterministic column does not belong to , then, after conditioning on every except , at most one value of can put the sum in . The continuous normal distribution gives probability zero. If every belongs to , changing finitely many does not change the membership event. It is then a tail event, and the Kolmogorov zero-one law gives probability zero or one. This proves the Gaussian zero-one law for measurable linear subspaces.
Now let for independent standard normal variables . Define
Both are cylinder-measurable infinite-dimensional linear subspaces. For every ,
so the Borel-Cantelli lemmas imply almost surely and hence . On the other hand, infinitely often almost surely, again by Borel-Cantelli, so
almost surely. Therefore .