Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 33 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Subtract , which does not affect either the integral or its quadratic variation. Let . Choose a localizing sequence for . By local boundedness of the previsible process , there are increasing stopping times and finite deterministic constants with on . PutContinuity and finiteness on compact intervals imply almost surely. The stopped process is a bounded square-integrable martingale, its bracket is bounded by , and its stopped integrand is bounded by . The indicator is predictable, so the stopped stochastic integral identity is valid.
Fix and abbreviateThe Itô isometry gives , so is a square-integrable martingale. For , apply the same isometry to the predictable integrand , stopped at . This yieldsAlso . Expanding therefore proves that is a true martingale. The process is continuous adapted increasing and starts at zero. By the characterization of continuous martingale quadratic variation as its increasing square compensator, and uniqueness of an increasing square compensator, we have .
Stochastic integration and quadratic variation commute with stopping; for the latter this follows either from squared-increment sums or from the same square-compensator characterization. Hence the desired identity holds up to every . Since these times increase to infinity, they exhaust every finite time interval almost surely, and the continuous identities patch to giveThis is the localized isometry proof of stochastic-integral quadratic variation. No unstopped second-moment or bracket-integrability assumption has been made.