An -simple function is a measurable function taking finitely many values, written with disjoint measurable . For nonnegative simple functions define , with . Refining two disjoint descriptions shows this value is independent of the description. For nonnegative measurable , define
For a real measurable , put and . It is Lebesgue integrable when , equivalently both positive and negative parts have finite integrals. Then
This includes Lebesgue integrable signed simple functions, whose integral is the same finite weighted sum.
Fatou's lemma states that nonnegative measurable functions satisfy
To prove it, put . These measurable nonnegative functions increase to . By the monotone convergence theorem, . Since for every , one has . Taking the limit proves the inequality, including extended infinite integrals.
We construct the density and singular part, rather than assuming the desired Lebesgue decomposition theorem. Put , a finite dominating measure, and use the real Hilbert space . The linear functional
is well defined on its equivalence classes, since a -null set is -null. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and give
By the Riesz representation theorem, there is with . Indicators of all measurable sets belong to this Hilbert space, so
The nonnegativity of these two measures forces almost everywhere. For instance, if , its -measure would be negative; the analogous sets contradict positivity of . Their countable union excludes every violation. Modify on its measurable -null exceptional set so that these inequalities hold everywhere. This is the Hilbert-space construction of dominated measure densities.
Define
Then , is a nonnegative measurable function, and . The identity for integration against follows first for indicators, then for nonnegative simple functions and finally for all nonnegative functions by the monotone convergence theorem. Applying it to gives
In particular , so . Additivity on the disjoint measurable sets and now gives
This is the Lebesgue decomposition from a sum-measure density: the first measure has a density, and the second is concentrated on a -null set, so is mutually singular with .
The absolute continuity of measures condition means that implies for every . If this holds, then , eliminating the singular part above. Conversely, a measure of the form vanishes on every -null set. Therefore
Thus absolute continuity is exactly the absence of the singular part in this construction.
A sigma-algebra on is a collection containing , closed under complements relative to , and closed under countable unions. These properties also give closure under countable intersections by De Morgan laws.
Let . Every constituent sigma-algebra contains , so . If , its complement belongs to every , hence to . Likewise, if for all , then belongs to every . Thus is a sigma-algebra. For an empty indexing set, the usual intersection convention gives , which is also a sigma-algebra.
A union need not work. On take
Their union contains and but not , so it is not a sigma-algebra. Put and let be the collection of all sigma-algebras on containing . This collection is nonempty because it contains the power set . By the preceding intersection argument,
is a sigma-algebra containing every , and it is contained in every other such sigma-algebra. This proves existence and minimality.
For the independent random variables, define the tail sigma-algebra by
Fix a tail event . For each , it belongs to , which is independent of . To justify independence of the generated sigma-algebras, first use independence of finite collections on cylinder events, then extend twice by the pi-lambda theorem. In particular, for every and every .
The increasing union is an algebra of sets generating . The collection of satisfying this factorization is a Dynkin system: it contains , is closed under complements, and under countable disjoint unions. The pi-lambda theorem therefore extends the factorization to all . Since , taking gives . Consequently,
This is the Kolmogorov zero-one law, proved here directly.
For each fixed , write for , with . The random variable is finite, so . Adding a real sequence tending to zero changes neither the extended-real limit inferior nor the extended-real limit superior. Hence
The quantities on the right are measurable with respect to : write the limit inferior as and the limit superior as , using countable operations on measurable functions. Therefore both threshold events belong to every such sigma-algebra, and hence are tail events, for every real threshold, including when either limit is infinite.
The final recurrence claim is false under the printed hypotheses. For , let be independent signs with equal probabilities for and , and set . These random variables are independent, have symmetric distributions, and obey . Nevertheless, the geometric series gives, on every sample path,
Thus the proposed repeated-return event has probability zero, even though none of the increments is degenerate. The Kolmogorov zero-one law does not determine which of zero and one occurs.
An additional identical-distribution hypothesis makes the intended conclusion true. Here is a full proof of that qualified version, using the oscillation of a bounded centered iid random walk. Symmetry and integrability give , so is a martingale for its natural filtration. If the common probability distribution is concentrated at zero, every is zero and the conclusion is immediate. Otherwise choose with . The Borel-Cantelli lemmas then give infinitely often almost surely; thus cannot converge to a finite limit.
For , let . Before the sum is below , and at it is at most . The stopped martingale is therefore nonnegative. A stopped integrable martingale remains a martingale at these bounded times, and a nonnegative martingale converges finitely almost surely by the martingale convergence theorem. On this would force to converge finitely, which has just been ruled out. Hence almost surely. Apply the same argument to and take a countable intersection over positive integer . It follows that
There are therefore arbitrarily late passages from above to below . A path with bounded increments of magnitude at most cannot make such a passage without visiting : jumping directly between its two open complementary half-lines would require an increment larger than . There are infinitely many such visits. Thus with the added identical-distribution hypothesis, the intended answer is
The real L2 space on a probability space consists of equivalence classes of measurable functions satisfying , where two random variables represent the same element if they are equal almost surely. Its norm is
Passing to equivalence classes makes this a genuine norm: exactly when almost surely. The Minkowski inequality gives the triangle inequality.
Let be a Cauchy sequence in this norm. Choose an increasing sequence of indices such that
This is possible by choosing beyond a Cauchy threshold for tolerance . Set . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality on a probability space gives . By Tonelli theorem,
Thus the series of absolute differences is finite almost surely. Define on this probability-one event, and give it the value zero on its complement. It is a measurable function, and almost surely.
For , the Minkowski inequality gives
Apply the Fatou lemma to the squared difference as . It follows that
In particular , and therefore by the Minkowski inequality. This proves convergence in L2 of the subsequence. To recover the entire sequence, for a prescribed choose a Cauchy threshold for , then choose with and . For every ,
Hence , proving completeness of Lp spaces for without assuming the desired completeness in the argument.
A simple function is a measurable function taking finitely many values, expressible as for disjoint measurable sets. For nonnegative coefficients define . The Lebesgue integral of a nonnegative measurable is
Suppose with each simple. Their integrals increase and are bounded above by . For the reverse bound, fix any simple and . The sets increase to a set containing . Hence , whose right side tends to by continuity from below of the measure on the finitely many level sets of . Let and then take the supremum over . This proves , including infinite limiting integrals.
The monotone convergence theorem states the same conclusion for any nonnegative measurable sequence , without simplicity. The preceding lower-bound argument works unchanged: and monotonicity of the integral give . Taking limits and the same two suprema proves
The upper bound follows from . Finiteness of the measure makes all bounded simple integrals finite in this proof; the theorem in fact extends to arbitrary measure spaces.
Construct the densities using the Riesz representation theorem for a Hilbert space, rather than assuming the measure-decomposition conclusion. Put , a finite dominating measure, and work in the real L2 space . The linear functional
is well-defined on its equivalence classes because . By the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality,
Thus the Riesz representation theorem supplies such that . Since is finite, is also integrable. Testing gives
The first identity and nonnegativity of rule out a positive-measure set where ; for example, test . The second identity and nonnegativity of similarly rule out . Modify a measurable representative on a -null set so that everywhere. This is the Hilbert-space construction of dominated measure densities.
Set
Then and . The indicator identities for extend to integrals of nonnegative measurable functions by approximation with simple functions and the monotone convergence theorem. Consequently,
and, for every ,
Hence
This proves Lebesgue decomposition from a sum-measure density. The argument includes the cases of zero measures; there is no division on , where the denominator vanishes.
Absolute continuity of measures, written , means that implies for every . If , then in the construction above, so the singular term vanishes. Conversely, if with a nonnegative integrable , that integral is zero on every -null set. Thus
This is the finite-measure Radon-Nikodym theorem as a consequence of the proved construction.
Finally restrict the base measure to the sub-sigma-algebra . For a real , write , with both parts nonnegative and integrable. On define finite positive measures
They are absolutely continuous with respect to . The result just proved gives nonnegative, -measurable densities satisfying
Set . Since , this is in , and subtraction gives
For complex , apply the real construction separately to its real and imaginary parts and combine the two results. This is conditional expectation from finite-measure densities. The resulting conditional expectation is unique almost everywhere: for two real versions, their difference has integral zero on its positive and negative level sets in , forcing it to vanish; apply this to both components in the complex case. No probability normalization of is required.
For , the real Lp space is the vector space of real measurable functions with , identifying functions equal almost everywhere. Its Lp norm is . For , take the essentially bounded real measurable functions, with the same identification and norm . The identification makes each norm definite; absolute homogeneity follows from the Lebesgue integral, and the triangle inequality follows from Minkowski inequality for finite , or directly from the essential supremum for .
Here is a completeness proof valid on any measure space. For , a Cauchy sequence has a subsequence with . Choose measurable function representatives and put . By Minkowski inequality and the monotone convergence theorem,
Consequently the series converges absolutely almost everywhere. Define there, and define it to be zero on the measurable exceptional null set. Then , and Fatou lemma applied to each tail gives . The original Cauchy sequence also converges in Lp norm, by the triangle inequality. For , choose the same subsequence using the essential supremum norm. Outside one measurable null set, all the bounds hold and is bounded. The series then converges uniformly there, with an essentially bounded measurable function limit and the same tail estimate in essential supremum norm. Thus all these spaces are Banach spaces.
The duality of Lp spaces says that, for and , the map
is an isometric isomorphism of normed spaces. This form of Lp duality on an arbitrary measure space requires no finiteness hypothesis on . At , a standard version assumes a sigma-finite measure and identifies with through the same dual pairing. That endpoint assertion must not be made without a suitable measure-space hypothesis.
We first prove the required duality of Lp spaces for a finite measure. Let and set . For disjoint measurable , the indicator functions of their partial unions converge in Lp norm to that of their union, so is countably additive. It has finite variation measure: for every finite measurable partition , choosing real signs gives
Also implies . The Radon-Nikodym theorem supplies a Radon-Nikodym derivative with . Linearity gives for simple functions. Uniform approximation by simple functions extends this identity to bounded measurable functions: both their Lp norm errors and the errors in integration against tend to zero.
To establish the correct integrability, test with the bounded measurable function . Since , writing gives
The second inequality is also valid when . The monotone convergence theorem gives and . Density of simple functions in the Lp space, together with Hölder's inequality, now gives on all of . Conversely Hölder's inequality gives . If , testing against
gives and , so . This also proves uniqueness of the representing Radon-Nikodym derivative.
For completeness, the passage to an arbitrary measure space can be made without losing a hypothesis in the reflexive Banach space argument below. On a sigma-finite measure space, exhaust by nested finite-measure sets . The representing Radon-Nikodym derivatives on agree on overlaps by uniqueness. Their glued density has Lp norm by the monotone convergence theorem, and represents because in Lp norm. Every on an arbitrary measure space is supported on a sigma-finite measurable set: the sets have finite measure and their union is .
Use support localization of an Lp functional as follows. For a sigma-finite measurable , let be the operator norm of restricted to functions supported in . The support observation gives . Choose approaching this supremum and set ; then . If a sigma-finite had , functions supported on the disjoint sets have the direct-sum Lp norm. Optimizing their two scalar coefficients by Hölder's inequality, and using functions approaching the two restriction operator norms, would give
a contradiction. Thus vanishes on functions supported outside . The density on , extended by zero, represents globally. The case simply uses . This proves the stated Lp duality on an arbitrary measure space.
Finally let and let , where stars denote continuous dual spaces. Compose with to obtain the bounded linear functional on . Applying duality of Lp spaces with the exponents reversed gives with . For the canonical embedding into the bidual , its value on is also . Since is onto, . Its norm is by the same dual pairing norm identity. Therefore , which proves that is a reflexive Banach space through its actual canonical embedding into the bidual.
For , consists of measurable functions with , identifying functions equal almost everywhere. Its Lp norm is . Thus membership is a condition on an almost-everywhere equivalence class, not on individual point values.
The Radon-Nikodym theorem for positive measures says: if and are sigma-finite measures on the same measurable space, and is absolutely continuous with respect to , then there is a nonnegative measurable function , unique -almost everywhere, such that
Here sigma-finiteness means that the space is a countable union of measurable sets of finite measure; absolute continuity of measures, written , means that implies . The function is the Radon-Nikodym derivative. For a finite signed or complex measure of finite total variation norm of a measure, absolutely continuous with respect to a sigma-finite , the corresponding density belongs to . This follows by applying the positive theorem to the positive and negative parts of the real and imaginary parts of .
For every measure space and , is isometrically , where . We use the complex-linear pairing
With the convention , the same identification is conjugate-linear in . By Hölder's inequality, is a bounded linear functional with . If , set
interpreting the numerator as zero where . The identity gives and . Thus
It remains to represent an arbitrary , rather than merely produce functionals from .
We prove Lp duality on an arbitrary measure space without imposing sigma-finiteness on . Write . For every measurable set with , define a complex measure on by
It is countably additive: for disjoint , the partial sums of their indicator functions tend in to , because the measure of the omitted tail tends to zero. It is absolutely continuous with respect to , since indicator functions of null sets represent zero in .
Its total variation norm of a measure is finite. For any finite measurable partition , choose scalars of modulus with . Then
Taking the supremum over partitions gives the variation bound. Since is finite, the Radon-Nikodym theorem supplies with . By uniform approximation with simple functions,
for every bounded measurable supported in .
To improve from to , test with the bounded function
If , then
Thus when , and the same bound is trivial when it is zero. The monotone convergence theorem gives
If both have finite measure, the densities agree almost everywhere on : their integrals over every measurable subset of the intersection equal the same functional value. This is uniqueness in the Radon-Nikodym theorem.
We now perform support localization of an Lp functional. Set
Choose finite-measure sets whose displayed integrals tend to , and let , . If , take . Compatibility allows us to define a measurable function on by taking on the disjoint measurable sets , and put off . It agrees almost everywhere with on every . Moreover,
Indeed each integral is at most , and it is at least the integral over , which tends to .
For any finite-measure set , compatibility on the disjoint union gives
Letting forces almost everywhere. For an arbitrary finite-measure set , compatibility on and the preceding conclusion on show that almost everywhere on . Consequently for every simple function supported on a finite-measure set.
Those simple functions are dense in even for this arbitrary measure space. To see the needed finite-support property, for the sets have finite measure, bounded by . First truncate to such sets and to bounded values, then approximate by simple functions; the discarded integral tends to zero. Continuity of and Hölder's inequality therefore extend the representation to every .
We have constructed with , and the previously proved norm identity gives . It also proves uniqueness: if , then . This completes the isometric duality of Lp spaces.
The dominated sequence actually converges to zero in norm, and hence weakly. The assumptions give and almost everywhere. The dominated convergence theorem yields
For every , . Therefore
Write for Lebesgue measure on . The Prékopa–Leindler inequality says that if and nonnegative measurable functions satisfy
then their Lebesgue integrals satisfy
It suffices initially to take . Zero integrals give a trivial bound; infinite integrals can be handled by truncating and and applying the monotone convergence theorem. As usual, a zero factor makes the asserted lower bound zero.
Here is a one-dimensional proof using quantile functions. Put , , and let , , be the quantile functions of the probability density functions and . At almost every the quantile derivative identity gives
For completeness, these reciprocal derivative identities follow by differentiating the corresponding cumulative distribution functions at their Lebesgue points and then differentiating the inverse function relation. Sampling a quantile function at a uniform argument samples the density itself, so the exceptional set, including locations where the density vanishes or is infinite, has probability zero. Gaps in a density's support can give jumps in its quantile function; they do not invalidate the argument below.
The monotone function obeys the monotone substitution inequality:
This form uses the ordinary derivative of a monotone function, rather than any jump or singular part: its weighted image measure is dominated by Lebesgue measure. One can see this first for intervals, where , and then extend to nonnegative measurable functions by simple function approximation. Thus no assumption of strictly positive smooth probability density functions is hidden in the proof.
Using the hypothesis and the weighted arithmetic-geometric mean inequality, we obtain
Integrating over proves the one-dimensional Prékopa–Leindler inequality.
For higher dimensions, use mathematical induction and Tonelli theorem. Write and set
Apply the one-dimensional Prékopa–Leindler inequality to the last-coordinate slices, with . It gives
Apply the induction hypothesis in and use Tonelli theorem once more. For finite total integrals, infinite slice integrals occur only on null sets and may be replaced by zero there; this only weakens the displayed premise. If the data are only Lebesgue measurable rather than Borel measurable, the exceptional nonmeasurable slices can be handled in the same way for , and by setting on its exceptional null set. The total integrals are unchanged, and the slice premise holds everywhere it is needed. The result therefore holds for general nonnegative measurable functions.
Use a filtered probability space , and put . The predictable sigma-algebra on is
Equivalently it is generated by left-continuous adapted processes. A real-valued previsible process is a function that is measurable for and the Borel sigma-algebra of .
A simple predictable process has the form
where is bounded and -measurable, and each is bounded and -measurable. Set after ; allowing a final infinite interval gives an equivalent dense class. The values may be restricted to finitely many values if desired, by approximating bounded measurable functions by simple functions. The initial-time term matters for arbitrary finite measures on : a measure can charge time zero, even though the stochastic integral against a continuous martingale does not.