Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2021 / iii / Paper 205 / 4 / a / Solution

Regard each centered random variable $g(x)$ as a vector $h_x$ in the Hilbert space $L^2(\mathbb{P})$. Thenso $k$ is the Gaussian kernel on the finite subset $\{h_x:x\in \mathcal{X}\}$ of that Hilbert space. More explicitly,Every power of the inner-product kernel is positive semidefinite, and the closure property of positive-semidefinite kernels under nonnegative sums, pointwise limits, and multiplication by one-variable factors proves that $k$ is positive definite.