Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 201 / 6 / b

Fix a deterministic $a\ge 0$. By the Strong Markov property at the finite Brownian first-passage time $H_a$, the process ${\tilde{B}}_s=B_{H_a+s}-a$ is a standard Brownian motion started at zero. Such a process takes positive values arbitrarily soon almost surely: for every $\epsilon >0$, the Brownian reflection principle makes its maximum on $[0,\epsilon ]$ have the distribution of $|B_{\epsilon }|$, so the probability that the maximum is zero is zero. Intersecting these events for $\epsilon =1/n$ gives an infimum of positive-crossing times equal to zero. ThereforeThe infimum defining the strict crossing time need not itself be a time when $B_t>a$; continuity gives $B_{T_a}=a$. The quantifier here is fixed-level almost sure equality, not indistinguishability of stochastic processes as the level varies.