Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 202 / 1 / d / Solution

Fix a L2-bounded continuous martingale $M$. Its quadratic-variation measure on the predictable sigma-algebra isIt is finite, since ${\nu }_M(\Omega \times [0,\infty ))=\mathbb{E}[M{]}_{\infty }=\mathbb{E}{M}_{\infty }^2-\mathbb{E}{M}_0^2$. The source Hilbert space is $L^2(M)=L^2(\Omega \times [0,\infty ),\mathcal{P},{\nu }_M)$: predictable processes with finite $\mathbb{E}\int H^{2}d[M]$, identified when equal ${\nu }_M$-almost everywhere. Its norm is $\Vert H{\Vert }_{L^2(M)}^2=\mathbb{E}\int H^{2}d[M]$.

The target ${\mathcal{M}}_0^2$ consists of L2-bounded continuous martingales starting at zero, identified up to indistinguishability of stochastic processes, with norm $\Vert K{\Vert }_{{\mathcal{M}}_0^2}=\Vert K_{\infty }{\Vert }_2$. It is a Hilbert space: terminal values belong to the closed linear subspace of $L^2({\mathcal{F}}_{\infty })$ whose conditional expectation given ${\mathcal{F}}_0$ is zero and whose associated martingales have continuous versions. Closure of that continuous-version subspace follows from the Doob L2 maximal inequality and an almost surely uniformly convergent subsequence.

The Itô isometry says that integration extends uniquely from simple predictable processes to a linear isometry $L^2(M)⟶{\mathcal{M}}_0^2$, withFor every finite $t$, the same identity holds with the integral restricted to $[0,t]$ and the left side $\mathbb{E}|(H\cdot M{)}_t{|}^2$. No claim of surjectivity onto all of ${\mathcal{M}}_0^2$ is needed: that would require an additional Martingale representation theorem.