On a measurable space with a sigma-finite measure , a Poisson random measure is a random counting measure such that has the Poisson distribution with parameter for every measurable of finite intensity, and the counts on finitely many pairwise disjoint measurable sets are independent. The sample measures are countably additive; repeated atoms are allowed if the intensity has atoms.
When , exhaustion by finite-intensity subsets gives almost surely. Indeed their counts increase, and the Poisson distribution probability of a count at most any fixed integer tends to zero as the parameter tends to infinity. Independent Poisson counts on disjoint sets, with means prescribed by , characterize the Poisson random measure.
Write a finite binary word as and denote its prefix cylinder set by
More generally, a cylinder set fixes finitely many coordinates, or prescribes a subset of their finite coordinate product, leaving all other coordinates free. Each coordinate factor is discrete, so finite-coordinate inverse images are both open and closed. Thus cylinders are clopen. The basic open sets of the product topology restrict only finitely many coordinates, so cylinders form a base. Any finite-coordinate cylinder is a finite union of prefix cylinders of one sufficiently long common length; the prefix cylinders therefore also form a base.
The Bernoulli space here is Cantor space, with compatible metric
It is a compact metric space: from any sequence, choose successively subsequences constant in the first, second and subsequent coordinates, and take the diagonal subsequence. Agreement on the first coordinates bounds the distance by , proving convergence. Compactness also follows from Tychonoff theorem.
Every cylinder indicator function is continuous because the cylinder is clopen. Hence is a vector subspace of the space of continuous functions on a compact space. To prove density, fix and . By uniform continuity, choose so that implies . Choose a point in each length- prefix cylinder and put
Then and . This proves cylinder-function density in Cantor space:
Positivity of implies monotonicity. The pointwise bounds therefore give
Evaluation on attains equality, so is continuous and has norm one. This is the norm of a positive functional on C(K).
The object extended to open sets is the set function , rather than the functional itself. Positivity gives , and linearity gives finite additivity on disjoint cylinders. To construct its extension directly, use the disjoint cylinder decomposition of open subsets of Cantor space. For an open , take the shortest prefixes for which . They are prefix-free, their cylinders are disjoint, and their union is . Define
For , use the empty prefix; for , use the empty sum.
This value is independent of the chosen disjoint prefix-cylinder decomposition. Indeed, compare two such decompositions and . For each fixed , its intersections with the give a disjoint open cover of the compact cylinder . Compactness reduces this to finitely many nonempty intersections. Each intersection is a prefix cylinder or is empty, so finite additivity gives . Sum over and rearrange the nonnegative double sum. Doing the same with each proves equality of the two totals.
For disjoint open sets , combine their disjoint cylinder decompositions to obtain one for . Rearrangement of nonnegative sums proves countable additivity on this family of open sets. The extension is unique because any countably additive extension must have the prescribed sum on every disjoint cylinder decomposition. Open sets are not themselves a sigma-algebra; countable additivity here concerns disjoint open families and their open union.
For the Borel probability measure, let be the algebra of finite unions of prefix cylinders. It is also the algebra of clopen sets, because every clopen set is compact and has a finite cylinder cover. Define on . If with all sets in , compactness of gives a finite subcover by the . Disjointness makes all remaining members empty. Thus finite additivity already establishes the premeasure condition.
The Caratheodory extension theorem gives a unique measure on . This is the Borel sigma-algebra, since the cylinders are a countable base; . Its values on open sets agree with the extension above. For cylinder simple functions,
Both sides are continuous in the supremum norm, so cylinder-function density in Cantor space gives
Any other Borel probability measure with this property agrees on every cylinder indicator function, hence on , and uniqueness in the Caratheodory extension theorem makes it equal to . This proves the Cantor-space representation of positive functionals without assuming the general representation theorem.
Now let be the supplied continuous surjection. The pullback
is a unital isometric embedding: surjectivity gives . On the vector subspace , define . This is well-defined, has norm one and satisfies .
The real Hahn-Banach theorem extends to on all of with the same norm. Norm preservation alone does not automatically mean positivity, so verify it. If , then and
Scaling proves positivity for every nonnegative . This is the unital contraction positivity criterion, giving a positive extension from a unital subspace of C(K).
Represent by the already constructed Borel probability measure on and take the pushforward measure . Continuity of makes its Borel inverse images measurable, and . The pushforward integral identity gives
This is compact-metric representation by Cantor-space pullback. The hypothesis already excludes an empty . The measure is on the Borel sets; no uniqueness claim on an unspecified larger collection of subsets is needed.
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.
Start with a finite subcover of the compact set . Among its remaining open balls, retain one of greatest radius and discard every ball intersecting it. Repeat until no balls remain. The retained family is finite and pairwise disjoint. If a discarded ball met the retained ball , then and . Therefore, for any ,
Every original ball lies in the concentric triple of one retained ball. This proves the Wiener covering lemma for the finite subcover. By Lebesgue measure scaling and subadditivity,
Disjointness gives
The empty compact set is covered by the empty selection.
The spherical derivative of a measure at is the limit
when it exists, where is the unit-ball volume. We prove that this limit is zero outside a Lebesgue-null set for the singular measure.
First derive the needed maximal estimate from the selection lemma. For a finite positive Borel measure , put
This is the uncentered maximal function of a finite measure. For , its strict superlevel set is the union of all balls with , so it is open. Cover any compact subset of this set by such balls and apply the finite Wiener covering lemma. The selected disjoint balls give
By inner regularity of Lebesgue measure, this proves the uncentered maximal weak-type inequality
Since and are mutually singular measures, there is a Borel set with and . By regularity of finite Borel measures on Euclidean space, for each choose compact with . Define the remainder measure .
For , distance from to this compact set is positive. Thus sufficiently small centered balls avoid , and
Write for the upper limit of the ratios. If it exceeds , then either or . Hence
The right side has Lebesgue measure at most , since . This even bounds the outer measure of the left side, without a separate measurability argument for the upper density. Let , and then take the countable union over positive rational . We obtain Lebesgue almost everywhere. The ratios are nonnegative, so their lower limit is also zero and
This proves that the spherical derivative of a singular measure vanishes. It is important to approximate the null carrier by compact subsets: a null carrier can be dense, so points outside it need not have any neighbourhood avoiding it.
In one dimension, consider the cumulative distribution function . For either sign of , monotonicity gives a nonnegative difference quotient, and the relevant half-open interval lies inside . In detail, the numerator is for , while after reversing both signs it is for . Thus
At each point where the spherical derivative of a measure is zero, this bound tends to zero from both sides. The enlarged open interval avoids any endpoint ambiguity from atoms. Therefore the ordinary two-sided derivative exists and
This is why singular distribution functions have zero derivative almost everywhere without having to be constant: almost-everywhere differentiation recovers increments only under extra hypotheses such as absolute continuity of a function.
For a scalar , put . The coarea formula for BV functions is the measure identity
for every Borel . For almost every real , is a finite-perimeter set, with . In particular . This is relative perimeter: it counts interfaces inside , and does not add the boundary jump of a zero extension.