Dyadic slope martingale 2026-10-05
For a real continuous function on , let be its secant slope on each length- dyadic cell. Regard as a probability space and use the filtration of half-open dyadic cells with the endpoint as a separate null cell. The mean of the two child slopes equals the parent slope, so is a martingale. Its integral gives the linear interpolation of on that grid. If is Lipschitz continuous, these slopes are bounded by its Lipschitz constant; the Lp martingale convergence theorem then supplies a bounded integral density for .
For , the Lp martingale convergence theorem states that a martingale with has a limit such that
Moreover, and . To see why matters, the Doob Lp maximal inequality gives an integrable dominating variable . The Martingale convergence theorem first supplies the almost-sure limit, then the dominated convergence theorem supplies convergence in the Lp norm. This maximal estimate is unavailable at in the required form.
Work on as a probability space, with Lebesgue measure of total mass one. Let be the filtration generated by the level- half-open dyadic cells together with the separate null cell . Define the dyadic slope martingale by
The endpoint may be assigned any value, since it is a null set for Lebesgue measure. The two child slopes average to their parent slope, by telescoping the two increments. Therefore almost everywhere, so this is a martingale. The Lipschitz condition gives everywhere except possibly at the freely chosen endpoint, where we take zero.
Apply the Lp martingale convergence theorem with . Its limit has almost everywhere and in L1 norm as well, by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Choose a measurable representative of and set it to zero on any exceptional null set; it is then a bounded measurable function on the entire interval.
Set . Telescoping at the grid points shows that is the linear interpolation of on the dyadic grid. The Lipschitz condition gives . Also
The two uniform limits coincide, giving the absolutely continuous function representation
The chosen bound holds for every after the null-set modification; the integral identity holds for every simultaneously.