Mean-square integral 2026-10-14
An ordinary time integral of random variables taken in the L2 space of the underlying probability space. Under strong measurability and , it exists as a Bochner integral; for a mean-square continuous process it is also the limit of Riemann sums in that space. If the process is centered and the covariance is integrable, Fubini's theorem gives
For a Gaussian process, the integral is a Gaussian random variable, by approximating it in mean square by finite linear combinations of jointly Gaussian random variables.
Let , , and , . The logarithm is a centered Gaussian random variable of variance . Squaring the stochastic kernel and integrating proves this formula. The exponential moment of a Gaussian linear functional gives and the displayed long-time growth exponent. Positive moment growth with zero mean strain reflects the breadth of the log-normal distribution; it does not imply positive growth of the mean logarithm.
For a fixed initial value , the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process has the normal distribution
The two parameters of are the expected value and variance, not the standard deviation. At the variance is zero and the value is fixed. More generally, its transition kernel over any interval of length has conditional expected value and conditional variance when the current value is . The coefficients depend on elapsed time; the initial probability distribution determines whether the resulting stochastic process is stationary.[ref]
In the stipulated example , , , , the expected value at time two is and the variance is . The initial distance from two has fallen by a factor , but the standard deviation has grown to about . Approaching the reference level in expected value is compatible with growing uncertainty from a perfectly known initial value.
Figure 1.
Ornstein-Uhlenbeck transition densities, mean relaxation and variance growth from a fixed initial value
. Details.
The solid probability density functions use times , and ; the dashed curve is the limiting normal distribution with expected value two and variance one. The curves are exact model predictions. There is no ordinary density for the fixed value at time zero.
A short derivation uses the integrating factor . The Itô product rule gives , hence
The stochastic integral has zero expected value. The Itô isometry gives its variance as . Its deterministic integrand makes it a Gaussian random variable, yielding the displayed normal distribution. Shifting the integration interval gives the same transition kernel from any later time.
Assume the displayed Gaussian forward-rate covariance drift restriction. Its diagonal instance gives
Using it on the two parts of the deterministic discounted exponent yields
The last equality uses covariance symmetry to reflect the triangular integration region across its diagonal. The independent increments of the integrated Gaussian forward-rate process and its conditional Gaussian moment-generating function then give, for ,
All these prices are integrable because their exponents are Gaussian random variables with finite variance. Thus the mean restriction implies the discounted bond martingale condition, completing the equivalence of the first two descriptions.
Let , where is the short rate. At maturity the zero-coupon bond pays one, so . If the discounted bond price is a martingale, its terminal conditional expectation is
The positive factor is measurable with respect to the current filtration. Dividing it out gives
Conversely, this identity says . The tower property gives for every , establishing the martingale condition. The integrated short rate is a Gaussian random variable with finite variance, so the Gaussian moment-generating function proves that is integrable. Together with the preceding subparts, this proves all three descriptions equivalent.
Use the large-deviation speed from part (a). For every , the Chernoff bound for a normal distribution gives, for all sufficiently large ,
Consequently
because the exponent has order , exceeding by a factor . Thus and satisfy exponential equivalence. This conclusion does not require independence between and , since their difference is exactly .
The exponential equivalence theorem transfers the large deviation principle and its good rate function, giving
Large positive excursions are cheapest through the single exponential random variable; a negative excursion would require the Gaussian random variable sum to move on its faster scale. If , the deterministic shift gives the same conclusion directly.
For , change to logarithmic magnitude and its correctly transformed probability density function:
Using , the radial equation becomes
This is diffusion with constant drift. Set and ; then . The initial Dirac delta transforms to , so the heat-kernel solution gives
Dividing by yields the lognormal magnetic-field amplification law
Expanding the square and using gives the equivalent requested form
The logarithm is a Gaussian random variable with mean and variance , which proves normalization and spreading directly. The exponential moments of that Gaussian distribution give , independently checking the energy growth. The limit at is the initial Dirac delta distribution, not a pointwise finite function.
For a separated weighted density, write . Its eigenvalue equation is
Set . Differentiation eliminates the first derivative of , giving the tilted Ornstein-Uhlenbeck oscillator transformation
Complete the square and introduce the dimensionless variable . The equation becomes
Comparing with the quantum harmonic oscillator gives . Its energies therefore correspond to . The dominant nonnegative separated mode is the ground state, which is nodeless. Consequently
For an independent check, is a centered Gaussian random variable with variance
The exponential moment of a Gaussian linear functional gives , whose long-time growth rate is the same . This exact Ornstein-Uhlenbeck multiplicative amplification formula also distinguishes the finite-time transient from the asymptotic exponential law. A general transient can contain sign-changing excited eigenfunctions in its expansion while the total weighted density remains nonnegative.
Write and change coordinates so that its John ellipsoid is , the Euclidean unit ball. Then the standard symmetric-body inequalities are
We give the contact argument underlying the construction. The John contact decomposition provides unit contact vectors and positive numbers such that
The last inequality follows because the supporting hyperplane of at must also support the contained Euclidean unit ball, hence has normal . For completeness, the decomposition follows from maximal volume as follows. If were not in the convex cone generated by at contact points, finite-dimensional separation would give a symmetric matrix with and at every contact. Subtract for small , retaining positive trace and obtaining strict negative values. For small , the support function is less than near all contact directions. On the compact complement of those neighbourhoods, has a positive minimum, so the perturbed ellipsoid remains inside there too. But its determinant is , contradicting maximum volume. The cone is closed: its generating contact matrices form a compact set of trace , so bounded traces bound their nonnegative coefficient sums. Finite-dimensional convexity then supplies finitely many contacts in the decomposition. Finally, for the identity gives , proving the second containment above.
Construct an orthonormal basis recursively. After have been chosen, let be their orthogonal complement. The orthogonal projection satisfies
As , some contact satisfies . Choose . This works through and gives
In particular, for .
Keep the contact vectors used for this basis. They lie in . Therefore, if , then and
For a standard Gaussian random vector in these coordinates, put . These centered Gaussian random variables have , and .
Here is a proof of the Sudakov-Fernique inequality needed for this finite family. Let with independent standard Gaussian random variables , so that for . Take independently and use
The Hessian is . Along , Gaussian integration by parts gives
Indeed, the one-dimensional identity follows by integrating the standard Gaussian density by parts, and applying it to a linear representation of these Gaussian vectors gives the covariance formula used here. Since , letting yields .
To estimate that last maximum, integrating the Gaussian density on gives for an absolute . With , independence shows
Its negative part has expectation at most . Hence for all sufficiently large , and adjusting covers every ; for these finitely many cases the expectation is strictly positive. For , . For use one contact vector and ; for the requested right side is zero. Thus
for an absolute , independent of both dimension and the norm.
Let denote the given unique equivalent martingale measure. A zero-coupon bond paying one at has risk-neutral pricing value
Write . Split the integrated short rate into its known and future parts:
By integrating the future Brownian motion increments in the opposite order, the last integral equals . It is independent of and is a Gaussian random variable of mean zero and variance
The Gaussian exponential moment formula for centered therefore gives the bond price in this Gaussian short-rate model with a deterministic shift:
The instantaneous forward rate is the negative maturity derivative of the logarithm of the bond price. Consequently
In particular, and , as required. The derivative formula is pointwise for continuous and almost everywhere for locally integrable .
Iterating the recurrence yields
Thus every finite collection of the is a linear transformation of independent standard normal random variables, and has a multivariate Gaussian distribution. The expected values are zero. Independence of the gives
For , the recurrence writes plus a sum of future innovations independent of . Hence . The required vector law is
The covariance matrix is positive definite: the lower-triangular transformation from has nonzero diagonal entries . This also identifies a stationary autoregressive process of order one, with marginal density .
With the standard normal density as the kernel for density estimation, the two characteristic functions are and . The Gaussian random variable has mean zero and variance , so
This expression is real. Substitution in the given integrated covariance expression, followed by the Gaussian integral for , gives
To bound the total Gaussian autoregressive kernel variance correction, apply the mean value theorem to . For , the whole interval between and is bounded below by . Therefore
Summing the geometric series gives the uniform bound
It follows from the supplied variance identity that
The constant depends on the fixed , but not on or . In particular this applies to the requested shrinking-bandwidth regime; the covariance bound itself does not need .
All observations have the same marginal density , so dependence changes the variance but not the bias of a kernel density estimator: . Write and . For a smooth density with , the integrated variance of a kernel density estimator in the independent case is . A second-order Taylor expansion of the convolution gives in the L2 norm. Thus the bias-variance decomposition of mean squared error gives
The first two terms are the asymptotic mean integrated squared error. The additional dependence term is smaller than , so the leading optimal bandwidth and optimal rate are the same as for independent data:
Here both and are the standard normal density. Since , direct Gaussian integrals give
Consequently the explicit leading bandwidth is
At this bandwidth the leading integrated variance is four times the leading integrated squared bias, which is also a check on the minimization constant.
A real Gaussian process is a family of random variables such that every finite vector has a multivariate normal distribution, allowing degenerate distributions. Equivalently every finite real linear combination is a Gaussian random variable. Its mean and covariance kernel are and .
For any finite set of indices, these functions give the whole mean vector and covariance matrix. The characteristic function of the vector is
The standard uniqueness theorem for characteristic functions therefore determines every finite-dimensional distribution, including the singular cases. Cylinder events form a generating class for the product sigma-algebra on and are closed under finite intersections, so agreement on all cylinder events gives agreement of the process laws by the uniqueness theorem for probability measures. Thus the mean and covariance determine the law on this coordinate sigma-algebra even when is uncountable. This statement does not claim uniqueness on an arbitrary finer sigma-algebra of path properties.
The gradient bound makes a Lipschitz function, with , so its value at a Gaussian random variable is integrable and square integrable. The future Brownian increment is independent of and has distribution . Conditioning on the current location therefore gives
This is the Markov property expressed through the Brownian transition semigroup. In particular and .
The independent standard Gaussian random variables have mean zero and variance one. For , the mixed products have expectation zero, giving
uniformly over as . Thus is Cauchy in the L2 space. Its completeness, proved in (i), supplies
Moreover convergence implies convergence of the means and second moments: and .
Choose real normalized eigenfunctions, including the two zero-energy filament modes. The expansion is
Integration by parts with the natural endpoints gives . Hence
For each positive mode, the equipartition theorem gives
Distinct modal amplitudes are independent centered Gaussian random variables in the canonical bending ensemble.
The rigid translation and tilt amplitudes have no energy cost. Their integrals in the canonical ensemble are unbounded, so a completely free filament has no normalizable equilibrium height distribution and no finite height variance determined by this energy alone. This is a physical qualification of the requested variance, not a reason to omit the bending fluctuations.
Fixing translation and tilt, for example by imposing , leaves the rigid-motion-projected thermal covariance of a free filament:
For unnormalized modes, divide each summand by . Any prescribed independent variance of the two rigid amplitudes must be added separately; equipartition theorem does not assign it.
The free-filament variance with fixed translation and tilt also has a closed form. Integrate a white noise curvature field twice, and subtract its affine least-squares projection. With , , the dimensionless kernel is
It has zero mean and first spatial moment, while its second derivative is the delta source. Since the covariance is , integrate its squared kernel to obtain
This conditional profile is symmetric about the midpoint: , with endpoint value and midpoint value . It refers to removing the free rigid motion, not to clamping either end.
Put . The random phase screen produces
Interpret the normality assumption as a jointly Gaussian process, not merely Gaussian one-point marginal distributions. Write its normalized autocorrelation as . The difference is a zero-mean Gaussian random variable with variance . Its characteristic function therefore gives the Gaussian phase-screen correlation
Without joint Gaussianity the autocorrelation alone does not determine this expectation.
For an acoustic pressure amplitude , with background mass density , the time-averaged acoustic energy flux is
An acoustic potential convention changes the dimensional prefactor. The physical field includes the carrier : a transverse Fourier transform mode has axial wavenumber in the parabolic wave equation. Thus its spectral acoustic flux is proportional to , or to at leading paraxial order. Differentiating the reduced field alone would omit the carrier contribution.
The infinite stationary illumination has a spectral measure of a stationary random field, rather than a finite ordinary value of at each . To specify the normalization, truncate the screen to an aperture of length , propagate this truncated initial field, and set
The propagation multiplier has modulus one. Using the Gaussian phase-screen correlation and the overlap of the two aperture intervals gives
Multiplication by gives the ensemble-averaged pressure-normalized modal acoustic energy flux for this finite-aperture convention.
The infinite-aperture spectral normalization consistent with the specified Fourier transform is
The integral and limit are understood as spectral measures of a stationary random field when necessary. By Parseval's identity, this is power per unit transverse length: . The ensemble-averaged axial spectral acoustic flux is independent of :
Here the notation includes Dirac delta distributions in the spectral measure of a stationary random field; the leading-order total flux is . The correction is meaningful within , the range of the paraxial approximation.
If and is integrable, the stationary phase-screen power spectrum separates into coherent and diffuse wave fields:
The coherent fraction is and the diffuse fraction is . If additionally , the stationary phase-screen power spectrum is with the same Fourier transform convention. Small alone does not imply small accumulated phase .
Put , the uniform bound on the supremum norm of the gradient. The fundamental theorem of calculus on a line segment, together with the inner product inequality , gives
Thus is Lipschitz continuous with respect to the L1 norm. The Gaussian random variables comprising and have finite exponential moments of their absolute values. More explicitly, for , Hölder's inequality gives . Consequently and every exponential expression below are finite, including when the covariance matrix is singular.
Use the convex function . Since is an independent copy of , Jensen inequality for the conditional expectation gives
For , define the Gaussian rotation of independent copies
Writing , both rotated covariance matrices are and their cross-covariance is zero. The pair has a centered multivariate normal distribution, so its components are independent and has the same probability law as . This calculation uses no inverse of and therefore also proves the assertion for degenerate multivariate normal distributions.
The path runs from to . The chain rule and the fundamental theorem of calculus give the pathwise identity
Apply Jensen inequality to the uniform probability measure on . Then use Tonelli theorem and the Gaussian rotation of independent copies to obtain
This proves the Gaussian rotation interpolation inequality in the required form:
The stated almost-sure domination now gives an exponential moment of an absolute standard normal variable bound. If , completing the square in the standard normal density yields
where is the standard normal distribution function. Hence Markov inequality gives, for every ,
The exponent is minimized at . Therefore the resulting Gaussian tail bound is
No independence of from or is needed: only the given almost-sure domination is used.
The Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian random variable in a Banach space is most conveniently defined using the first Gaussian chaos. Work over the real separable Banach space , with continuous dual space . For a centered Gaussian random variable in a Banach space, define
The set inside the closure is already a linear subspace. Every is a centered Gaussian random variable. The Bochner integral defining exists: Fernique's theorem states that for some , , and then Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives .
The map is injective. Indeed, implies for all . Density of these observations in then implies . Define the Reproducing kernel Hilbert space by
The injectivity makes the inner product unambiguous, and the completeness of makes a Hilbert space. The embedding into is continuous since
For put . The reproducing property is
This defines the Banach-space Gaussian RKHS even for a degenerate Gaussian measure.
For , write . There is a measurable coordinate on , obtained as a limit in L2 space of continuous linear observations, and has normal distribution . The Cameron-Martin theorem for a Gaussian measure, in its real separable Banach space form, states that if is the probability law of , then the probability law of is an equivalent probability measure to precisely when . For such a shift,
For the two laws are mutually singular measures. The coordinate need not be a continuous functional on , and the sample need not belong to .
Apply this theorem to the shift . With , it gives
Choose the measurable coordinate so that on a symmetric set of full -measure. This is possible by taking an almost-surely convergent subsequence of the approximating linear observations and intersecting its convergence set with its negative. Alternatively the joint law of is invariant under simultaneous negation, directly from those observations and their mean-square convergence. Since and the centered Gaussian measure is symmetric, the two exponential integrals with signs and agree. Consequently
because . The symmetric Gaussian translation lower bound is therefore
Only symmetry and Borel measurability of are required; convexity is not needed.
There is one degenerate flaw in the last printed claim. The separable Banach space with has dense in , and all positive-radius balls have probability one. Nevertheless for every . Thus the statement needs the additional hypothesis . If the course convention excludes the zero space, this hypothesis is already implicit.
Under this necessary hypothesis, density of implies that contains a nonzero vector. Given , scale that vector to obtain with , and choose . The triangle inequality gives
The centered closed ball is a symmetric Borel set. Apply the symmetric Gaussian translation lower bound to get
Hence the Gaussian norm distribution is strictly increasing when is nonzero. This proves the strict increase of a Gaussian norm distribution without assuming that its distribution has a density or that spheres have zero probability.
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.