Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 202 / 4 / a / Solution

The printed assumptions omit the orthogonality needed for the claimed local martingales. Merely placing two Brownian motions on the same probability space does not make them independent. Interpret both as Brownian motions relative to a common filtration, and put $C_t=[B,\vartheta {]}_t$. For $X=e^B\cos \vartheta$ and $Y=e^B\sin \vartheta$, the two-variable Itô formula givesThe pure second derivatives cancel because $[B{]}_t=[\vartheta {]}_t=t$, while the mixed partial derivatives are $X_{b\vartheta }=-Y$ and $Y_{b\vartheta }=X$. Thus the mixed quadratic covariation term cannot be omitted.

For a counterexample allowed by the PDF, take $\vartheta =B$. Then $C_t=t$ and $X$ has drift $-Ydt$, while $Y$ has drift $Xdt$. In particular $X_0=1$ makes the latter drift nonzero near zero, so $Y$ is not a local martingale. Nor is $X$: $Y$ cannot be identically zero, so its accumulated continuous drift is not identically zero. Uniqueness of the continuous semimartingale decomposition excludes cancellation by another local martingale term.

The corrected hypothesis is $[B,\vartheta ]\equiv 0$, for example independent Brownian motions in their joint filtration. Conversely, if both were local martingales, uniqueness of the continuous semimartingale decomposition would force $YdC=XdC=0$; since $X^2+Y^2=e^{2B}>0$, this forces $dC=0$. Thus the correction is exactly the condition needed for both local martingales. Under this hypothesis the drift terms vanish and the intended stochastic differential equations are $dX=XdB-Yd\vartheta$ and $dY=YdB+Xd\vartheta$. The continuous integrands are locally bounded, so localization makes these Itô integrals continuous local martingales. Subsequent intended conclusions are proved under this explicitly stated correction.