Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 26 3 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For , write for the standard normal distribution function. Since the Brownian running maximum is nonnegative, gives simply .
For and , reflect the Brownian motion after its first hit of . This is a stopping time, and the Strong Markov property together with symmetry of Brownian increments shows that reflection preserves its law. On paths that hit , it sends the endpoint to . Thus the event with endpoint at most maps to endpoints at least , all of which necessarily hit . This provesThe same reflection gives . If , every path with has hit , so subtracting that endpoint tail gives the complete answer:The expressions agree at . This is the joint distribution of Brownian motion and its running maximum. In particular has the distribution of and has no atoms for . If , the pair is deterministically, so the requested probability is .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 201 5 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let . Reflect at this stopping time, using the Brownian reflection principle from (a). Path continuity gives , and on this event the reflected endpoint is . ConsequentlySince , an endpoint forces the reflected path to have hit by time . Reflection preserves the first hit of , so the condition is redundant on the right. As has the same probability distribution as , the joint distribution of Brownian motion and its running maximum satisfiesThis argument includes ; at positive the boundary endpoint has zero probability under the normal distribution. At both sides vanish because .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 3 29K b ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
On the interior of the support , differentiating the joint distribution of Brownian motion and its running maximum gives the joint probability densityMake the change-of-variables formula for a probability density and . Its inverse is , , and its Jacobian determinant has absolute value one. Since , for this yields