Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 38 2 a ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The equal-time condition is the criterion proved equivalent to weak orthogonality in solution. Its equivalence with the quadratic-covariation condition follows from the covariance identity for continuous square-integrable martingales in solution; its equivalence with the forward-stopping condition follows from the optional sampling theorem in solution. These combine to give all four equivalences.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 38 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Take a standard Brownian motion and defineThe Itô formula gives , so both are continuous martingales starting at zero. Their second moments are and , making them L2-bounded continuous martingales. At equal times, the odd moments of a centered normal random variable vanish, soThey are consequently weakly orthogonal continuous martingales by solution.
Their product, for , is . The Itô formula givesThe continuous finite-variation term is not identically zero: it has variance at every . Uniqueness of the continuous semimartingale decomposition therefore shows that is not even a local martingale. Equivalently is not zero, so the pair is not orthogonal continuous local martingales.