Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 201 3 d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Let be Brownian motion in started at a nonzero point. The function is a positive harmonic function on because its Laplacian vanishes there. Stopping on annuli and applying Itô formula shows that is a local martingale. Letting the inner boundary shrink to zero also shows that three-dimensional Brownian motion does not hit the origin.
A positive local martingale is a supermartingale, so is -bounded by . The upcrossing proof from part (c), which applies verbatim to a positive supermartingale, therefore gives a finite almost-sure limit
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 202 1 a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Apply Itô formula to . Its semimartingale decomposition isThe second term is a continuous finite-variation process. Since is assumed to be a local martingale, uniqueness of the semimartingale decomposition makes this term identically zero. Both and are nonzero, so the quadratic variation of is .
The Lévy characterization of Brownian motion now says that is a Brownian motion. Consequentlyis a constant multiple of an exponential Brownian martingale. It is therefore a true martingale for every .
Semimartingale Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A semimartingale is the sum of a local martingale and an adapted finite-variation process. This is the broad class of integrators for which the Itô stochastic integral is defined.
Semimartingale decomposition Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
A semimartingale has a decomposition into a local martingale and an adapted finite-variation process . Under standard normalizations the decomposition is unique.