Diffusion with hyperbolic tangent drift 2026-10-07
The scalar stochastic differential equation has a pathwise unique global strong solution, since its coefficients are globally Lipschitz. The positive martingale gives a Girsanov theorem change of measure under which is Brownian motion. For , its transition density isThis is a Doob h-transform with , and a mixture of and with weights and .
Let and . The Girsanov theorem first makes a continuous local Q-martingale. Boundedness of gives and : write and apply Novikov's condition to .
The quadratic covariation bound gives . For a square-integrable martingale , both its maximal square moment and its expected terminal bracket are finite. Cauchy-Schwarz inequality with the density therefore yields . The dominated limit of its stopped conditional identities proves the true martingale property. Mere P-integrability of does not suffice.
Girsanov theorem Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Girsanov's theorem describes how a change of probability measure changes the drift of a semimartingale. If the appropriate stochastic exponential is a true martingale, weighting by it turns into a Brownian motion under the new measure.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 22 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Here is the Brownian change-of-drift form of the Girsanov theorem. Let be a standard Brownian motion on and predictable with almost surely. Suppose the stochastic exponentialis a true martingale with . Define . Then is equivalent to andThe same statement holds in dimensions with scalar products, squared norms and a vector drift. Novikov's condition is a standard sufficient condition for the true-martingale hypothesis. Bounded is enough for all applications below.
For the proof, Itô formula gives . The Itô product rule gives the cancellationThe two drift terms cancel because . Stop when its absolute value reaches , at a time capped by . The same product calculation makes a local martingale under . Its absolute value is at most ; the density martingale is uniformly integrable over this finite horizon, so the stopped product is a true martingale. Bayes' conditional identity then givesAs increases, these stopping times exhaust the horizon by continuity. Thus is a continuous local martingale under . Adding a finite-variation drift does not change quadratic variation, so .
To prove the Brownian conclusion rather than just assert it, for every real apply Itô formula to . Its differential is , and its modulus is bounded on the fixed horizon, so it is a true martingale. ConsequentlyThe conditional characteristic function identifies a centered normal increment with variance , independent of the past. Together with continuity and , this proves the Brownian assertion. For vector , the same argument uses and gives the multivariate version. If , stopping and applying Itô formula to gives a uniform second-moment bound by Gronwall inequality; this proves uniform integrability of the stopped densities and the needed true-martingale property in the bounded case.
In the Black-Scholes model with its usual augmented Brownian filtration, write , , with . Take , the market price of risk. Under , the preceding change of drift givesso is a martingale. The Martingale representation theorem then makes integrable Brownian-market claims attainable and gives their risk-neutral pricing as discounted conditional expectations. The physical drift has disappeared from the price dynamics.
For the joint terminal-value and maximum law, first use the Brownian reflection principle at level . Reflecting a path after its first hit of preserves its law as a Brownian motion and sends a terminal value to ; the symmetry and strong Markov property of the post-hit increments justify this map. Thus, with ,Take the constant-drift exponential density . By Girsanov theorem, the coordinate process under this tilted measure has the law of under . Consequently, for and ,Completing the squares givesIntegrating provesHere is the standard normal distribution function. The first variable is the terminal Brownian value, distinct from its running maximum.
Set , and . Under the risk-neutral measure, . Taking in the joint law gives the probability of not hitting the upper level. Complementing it and discounting the unit payment at maturity gives the one-touch option priceThe exponential weight is also . The payment occurs at , even if the barrier was hit earlier, so its discount factor is , not a hitting-time discount factor.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 31 6 Solution 2026-10-14
Here is a finite-horizon Girsanov theorem statement with the sign fixed explicitly. Let be a Brownian motion under , and let be predictable with almost surely. Ifis a true martingale with , then the measure defined by makes a Brownian motion up to . The sufficient Novikov condition is . Merely being a local martingale is not a sufficient density condition.
For a deterministic absolutely continuous function with and derivative , take . Novikov's condition holds because its exponential is deterministic and finite. Under , the canonical process has the law of a Brownian motion plus . Thus for every bounded measurable path functional ,This derives the Cameron-Martin theorem density formula from the Girsanov theorem, rather than assuming the two measures have the same drift convention. Replacing by changes the sign of the stochastic integral.
The question's path space is the whole half-line, not just one finite horizon. When , the density martingale satisfiesIt has a uniformly integrable limit of mean one, strictly positive almost surely. Integrals here converge in and almost surely. The finite-time identities then identify as the density on the full path sigma-algebra, since finite-time cylinder events generate it. This is Cameron-Martin shifts on infinite Wiener path space. Finite-horizon absolute continuity of measures alone does not imply infinite-horizon absolute continuity of measures.
Apply Itô's formula to . The quadratic-variation correction cancels the finite-variation term:Localization of the integrand proves that is a nonnegative continuous local martingale.
For completeness, Conditional Fatou lemma says that for nonnegative random variables ,Choose a localizing sequence such that each stopped is a martingale. Fatou first gives . For , its conditional form then givesThus is a supermartingale.
A sufficient condition for it to be a true martingale on is Novikov's conditionUnder this condition the stochastic exponential is a uniformly integrable martingale on that finite interval. Requiring it for every finite gives the martingale property at all finite times; it does not automatically give uniform integrability as .
The bounded integrand makes a square-integrable martingale, with quadratic variationThusNovikov's condition applies to the stochastic exponential . Hence is a true martingale with . It is strictly positive because its exponent is finite almost surely.