For any step , set . The Ornstein-Uhlenbeck transition distribution gives the exact updateusing a fresh independent standard normal random variable for each interval. The update reproduces the joint probability distribution on the selected time grid. It can start from a fixed value or use Ornstein-Uhlenbeck stationary initialization. On an equally spaced grid it is an autoregressive process of order one after subtracting . Its stationary variance follows directly from .
For the stipulated example with , and the innovation variance is . Given , the next conditional expected value is about and the conditional standard deviation is about .
The Euler-Maruyama method instead approximates the same stochastic differential equation byFor its stationary variance solves , givingAt in the example, this is , about above the continuous model's stationary variance. If , this Euler recurrence has no finite stationary variance despite the stable continuous model. Exact transitions avoid this discretization error at sampled times; neither update alone determines the unresolved motion between samples.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 216 4 c Solution 2026-09-28
Invariant distribution of an Itô diffusion, specialized to Underdamped Langevin dynamics, has densityThus has density proportional to , and conditionally and marginally . The Hamiltonian transport between and preserves this density, while the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process in momentum has exactly that Gaussian invariant law.