Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / iii / Paper 202 / 4

Use the standard definition of a local martingale, including an integrable initial value, and let $T_n\uparrow \infty$ be a localizing sequence. If $X\ge 0$, the Fatou lemma gives $\mathbb{E}{X}_t\le {\mathrm{liminf}}_n\mathbb{E}{X}_{t\wedge T_n}=\mathbb{E}{X}_0<\infty$. For $s\le t$, the Conditional Fatou lemma givesFor clarity, the Conditional Fatou lemma itself follows by setting $U_m={\inf }_{n\ge m}{U}_n$ for nonnegative $U_n$, applying the conditional version of the monotone convergence theorem to $U_m\uparrow \mathrm{liminf}{U}_n$, and observing $\mathbb{E}(U_m\mid {\mathcal{F}}_s)\le {\inf }_{n\ge m}\mathbb{E}(U_n\mid {\mathcal{F}}_s)$. Hence a nonnegative local martingale is a supermartingale.

If $|X_t|\le C$ simultaneously for all $t$, with a deterministic $C<\infty$, the dominated convergence theorem applied to the stopped martingale identity gives, for each $A\in {\mathcal{F}}_s$,This is exactly the conditional expectation identity, so a bounded local martingale is a true martingale. The same proof works for deterministic bounds on every finite time interval; merely having a finite random pathwise bound supplies no dominating integrable random variable and is a different convention.

Let $U_t=(1,0,0)+(B_t^1,B_t^2,B_t^3)$, with three independent standard Brownian motions, and set $R_t=|U_t|$ and $M_t=R_t^{-1}$. The radial stochastic process $R$ is a three-dimensional Bessel process, which never hits zero by the Hitting-zero classification for a Bessel process. In three dimensions $u\mapsto |u{|}^{-1}$ is a harmonic function away from zero: direct differentiation gives $\Delta (|u{|}^{-1})=0$.

For the stopping times $T_n=\inf \{t:R_t\notin (1/n,n)\}$, $n\ge 2$, the Itô formula givesThe coefficients are bounded by $n^2$, so each stopped Itô integral is a true martingale on every finite horizon. The stopping times form a localizing sequence; as permitted, its divergence need not be proved here. Thus $M$ is a nonnegative continuous local martingale.

To see that $M$ is not a true martingale, integrate the three-dimensional multivariate normal density of $U_t$ in spherical coordinates. The angular integral yieldswhere $\Phi$ is the standard normal distribution function. Therefore the reciprocal of a three-dimensional Bessel process is a strict local martingale.

Put $\Delta B_h=B_{t+h}-B_t$ and $R_h={\int }_t^{t+h}(H_s-H_t)d{B}_s$. The constant-in-time coefficient $H_t$ on $(t,t+h]$ is previsible, so the ratio minus $H_t$ is $R_h/\Delta B_h$. Since $|H|\le C$, continuity and the dominated convergence theorem implyThe Itô isometry gives $\mathbb{E}{R}_h^2\le h{\eta }_h$. For $\epsilon ,\delta >0$, use the Chebyshev inequality and the normal distribution of $\Delta B_h/\sqrt{h}$ to obtainFirst let $h\downarrow 0$, then $\delta \downarrow 0$; the normal distribution has no atom at zero. This provesNo independence between $R_h$ and the denominator is needed.

The first estimate suggested by the hint is valid: Brownian scaling and the Gamma function give $\mathbb{E}|\Delta B_h{|}^{-1/2}=h^{-1/4}{2}^{-1/4}\Gamma (1/4)/\sqrt{\pi }$. The second hint requires care about the placement of its expectation: with $V_h={\int }_t^{t+h}(H_s-H_t{)}^{2}ds$, the interpretation $\mathbb{E}|R_h{|}^{1/2}\le (\mathbb{E}{V}_h{)}^{1/4}$ is correct by the Jensen inequality and the Itô isometry, whereas the interpretation $\mathbb{E}|R_h{|}^{1/2}\le \mathbb{E}(V_h^{1/4})$ is false with constant $1$. For the latter interpretation, the Burkholder-Davis-Gundy inequality supplies a constant $C_{1/2}$ instead. One can see the obstruction with a Brownian motion stopped on exiting $(-1,1)$: if $\tau$ is that Brownian exit time, then $|B_{\tau }|=1$, $\mathbb{E}\tau =1$, and strict Jensen inequality gives $\mathbb{E}{\tau }^{1/4}<1=\mathbb{E}|B_{\tau }{|}^{1/2}$.

This obstruction also survives the continuity condition on $H$. On a long finite interval approximate $1_{\{s<\tau \}}$ by a continuous adapted process equal to $1$ until $\tau$ and decreasing linearly to $0$ during the next $ϵ$ units of time, and take its initial value to be $0$ by inserting a short continuous ramp before starting the exit experiment. The Itô isometry controls these approximations, and letting the interval length tend to infinity recovers the strict inequality above; hence some bounded continuous adapted example also violates the latter interpretation with constant $1$. The direct proof avoids relying on this ambiguous hint.