For in , the radial function has
The multidimensional Itô formula, initially stopped away from zero, gives
The martingale term has quadratic variation , since . The Lévy characterization of Brownian motion says that a continuous local martingale starting at zero with quadratic variation is a standard Brownian motion. Consequently the radial equation is
On the drift is Lipschitz continuous. Extend it to a bounded globally Lipschitz function on the real line. The standard existence and pathwise uniqueness theorem for stochastic differential equations with globally Lipschitz coefficients applies to this extension, and gives uniqueness in law up to the first exit from . Both this radial process and the process in part (a) solve the same equation from . Thus
where each exit time is computed from its own coordinate path.
For completeness, the radial equation is valid globally: the three-dimensional Bessel process does not hit zero. Apply the Itô formula to on the annulus. Its drift is zero, and the stopped process is a bounded martingale. At the first exit,
so
The exit time is finite because one coordinate of the underlying Brownian motion reaches in finite time. Letting and then considering arbitrarily large proves that zero is never reached. The radial martingale therefore has quadratic variation on the whole time axis, completing the Lévy characterization of Brownian motion argument.
The conformal invariance of planar Brownian motion is a time-change statement. If is a conformal bijection of planar domains and is planar Brownian motion started in , let be its exit time and define
Before exit this clock is strictly increasing. Its inverse makes a planar Brownian motion started at , up to its transformed lifetime . The image of the stopped trajectory is therefore invariant in law after this change of time. A holomorphic map with nonzero derivative gives the corresponding local statement even without global injectivity.
Here is the proof. Write and . The real and imaginary parts are harmonic. The Itô formula therefore gives the two continuous local martingales
stopped on compact subsets of . The Cauchy-Riemann equations imply
Thus both coordinate quadratic variations equal and their quadratic covariation is zero. After inverse time change, the covariance matrix of the two continuous local martingales is . The multidimensional Lévy characterization of multidimensional Brownian motion states that a continuous vector local martingale starting at zero with this covariance matrix is standard vector Brownian motion. Apply it after subtracting , and exhaust by compact subsets. This proves the theorem, with killing at the transformed exit lifetime. The clock is the conformal Brownian clock; omitting it would generally give an incorrect speed.
Put . The hitting times are finite almost surely by recurrence of planar Brownian motion, and increase with . At , the position is . By the Strong Markov property, Brownian scaling, and rotational invariance of planar Brownian motion, the future process
is a standard planar Brownian motion started at , independent of . The random rotation does not change its conditional law, since that law is rotationally invariant.
The first time this rescaled process reaches radius corresponds to the original time . Its continuous argument starts at zero and equals the increment of the original winding angle. Hence
For any ordered finite collection of levels, apply this assertion successively. Earlier winding values are measurable at the current hitting time, so all increments are independent and their laws depend only on the level differences. This proves the Lévy process property of winding at logarithmic radial passage levels.
One can also verify stochastic continuity and identify this process. The logarithmic-radius and argument martingales have the common clock
The same Cauchy-Riemann equations calculation as in part (a), applied locally to the logarithm and joined along the continuous argument, gives independent Brownian motions such that and . This clock diverges: if it had a finite limit, convergence of martingales with finite total quadratic variation would make converge to a finite value, forcing the clock integral itself to diverge.
Thus, with , we have . The Brownian first-passage Laplace transform is . It follows either from the Exponential martingale for Brownian motion stopped at , or from the one-dimensional exit equation. Conditioning on the independent process gives
So this is a symmetric Cauchy process, with level parameter . The formula implies stochastic continuity at zero and, by stationary increments, everywhere. Under the usual definition requiring càdlàg paths, use the right-continuous passage clock . It agrees with for each fixed level almost surely, and is the càdlàg modification. This distinction concerns simultaneous passage levels and does not alter any increment law.
Define the quadratic covariation of two continuous semimartingales by polarization:
The available quadratic variation convergence theorem and the polarization identity imply that the sums of products of simultaneous grid increments converge in uniform convergence on compacts in probability to . The quadratic covariation is a continuous finite-variation process, vanishing at time zero.
For a grid ending at , the elementary algebraic identity
telescopes. The first two sums converge by part (a), with the continuous processes as integrands; continuous paths are left-continuous and locally bounded. The last sum converges to the quadratic covariation by the preceding polarization argument. Finally, locally uniformly by continuity. Hence
This is the Itô product rule, or stochastic integration by parts. Uniqueness of the limit in uniform convergence on compacts in probability, followed by continuity, makes the identity hold simultaneously for all outside one null set. The proof used finite-grid algebra, part (a), and the permitted quadratic variation theorem; it did not use the Itô formula.
Use the shifted filtration . Each is a stopping time, and the optional sampling theorem implies that is a -martingale. It is -bounded, for example by . Its quadratic variation is . The shifted process is continuous and -adapted, hence predictable. Its boundedness and the integrability of the bracket make the right-hand stochastic integral well-defined in .
For a deterministic partition , use left-endpoint coefficients . Both integrals have the same approximating sum
On the original clock this is the integral of the simple process on the stopping-time intervals ; on the shifted clock it is a deterministic-partition integral. As the mesh tends to zero, continuity of gives pathwise uniform approximation on the random compact interval . The Itô isometry and domination by a constant times the integrable give convergence of both sums. Thus stopping-time shift of a stochastic integral yields
The left integral includes increments strictly after , so no jump at the starting time is added.
For a continuous path of finite variation on , every partition satisfies
Uniform continuity makes the right side tend to zero as the mesh tends to zero. The quadratic variation of the given continuous local martingale is therefore identically zero.
Stop when its magnitude first reaches an integer , so the stopped process is a bounded, square-integrable martingale. The square identity, or the Itô isometry, gives . Hence it is zero at each rational time almost surely, and continuity extends this simultaneously to all times. Let tend to infinity. This proves
This is the continuous finite-variation local martingale is constant principle with initial value zero.
For a continuous semimartingale , its quadratic variation is the continuous increasing zero-starting process obtained as the limit, uniformly on compact time intervals in probability, of sums of squared increments along deterministic partitions whose mesh tends to zero. If is its continuous local-martingale/finite-variation decomposition, then ; finite-variation terms and their cross sums vanish.
Write . If , then for every ,
First send to infinity and then to infinity. Thus convergence in probability under implies convergence in probability under , also for a supremum on a compact time interval. The same squared-increment sums converge under to the version of . Since is also a semimartingale under , these sums converge to its quadratic variation. Uniqueness of limits in probability gives equality at every fixed time; continuity and countably many rational times give
Absolute continuity suffices; equivalence is not required. This is quadratic variation under an absolutely continuous measure change.
One continuous Girsanov theorem formulation is as follows. Let be a zero-starting continuous local martingale such that is a strictly positive uniformly integrable martingale, and define . For every continuous -local martingale ,
On a finite horizon the same assertion holds with terminal density , provided is a true martingale through . In particular, if , then
is a Brownian motion under , on the specified horizon. Its quadratic variation remains under this absolutely continuous measure (equivalent on every finite-horizon sigma-algebra), and the Lévy characterization of Brownian motion identifies it as Brownian. The density sign and drift subtraction are paired: choosing the exponential of instead produces .
Put and . Telescoping gives
The martingale transform summands are orthogonal in : for an earlier summand, conditioning on the sigma-algebra at the start of the later increment makes the cross expectation zero. Hence
The martingale increments themselves are also orthogonal. Since , their variance sum equals . Therefore
Only discrete martingale orthogonality is used here; no pre-existing quadratic variation calculation is needed.
The defining relation gives . Applying and the bound from part (a),
Thus
uniformly in the dyadic mesh. This controls the approximations to quadratic variation without assuming that their limits already exist.
Let be the quadratic variation. We use bilinear quadratic covariation for the complex martingale: . The Itô formula gives
By the Itô product rule, the finite-variation part of is
Part (a) says the product is a martingale, so uniqueness of the continuous semimartingale decomposition makes this finite-variation part zero. For , division gives
For , and both sides are zero, so the identity holds without exception.
At the terminal time, , so the martingale from part (c) has terminal value . Its initial value is , since . Taking expectations gives
Here may be a nonconstant -measurable variable; the tower property of conditional expectation still gives . This characteristic function under conditionally symmetric martingale increments identity relates the characteristic function of the terminal martingale to the Laplace transform of a nonnegative random variable given by its quadratic variation.
Fix . The given normal distribution and part (d) imply
One can deduce determinism without any moment assumption on the bracket. Put . Taking gives and , so . Therefore almost surely. Applying this at every rational time and using continuity of quadratic variation gives simultaneously for all outside a single null set.
The Lévy characterization of Brownian motion states that a continuous local martingale starting at zero with this bracket is Brownian motion in its filtration. To see the independent-increment conclusion directly, the Itô formula shows that is a martingale on any fixed bounded time interval: it is a local martingale with a deterministic bound on its modulus. Thus
The deterministic conditional characteristic function identifies an increment independent of . Together with the given path continuity and , this proves is Brownian motion.
Use the Chordal Loewner equation with Loewner driving function , and set . Before the Loewner swallowing time,
The upper-half-plane branch of the logarithm has imaginary part . The Itô formula gives
and therefore the SLE angle process satisfies
At the drift vanishes. Since , the stopped local martingale is a true bounded martingale, and the SLE4 angle martingale is global for each fixed point almost surely, using fixed-interior-point avoidance of SLE4 for the simple parameter-four Loewner trace.
Conversely, take . If this semimartingale were a local martingale, uniqueness of its finite-variation decomposition would force throughout every compact interval before swallowing. Because , for this would force to be identically zero on such an interval. Its Brownian component has quadratic variation , which makes that impossible. Thus for positive , the martingale parameter is exactly four.
If the degenerate value is admitted, there is one exception to a fixed-point reading of the assertion: for on the positive imaginary axis the deterministic flow stays on that axis until swallowing, and is constant. For all starting points simultaneously, the unique parameter giving the martingale property is still four.
Since the density martingale is uniformly integrable, . Equivalence of measures, as stipulated, means almost surely. Write for the stochastic logarithm. The Itô formula gives , and hence the quadratic covariation in the drift correction is
It involves the local-martingale part of ; its continuous finite-variation part has zero covariation.
With , the Itô product rule now gives an exact cancellation:
Thus is a P-local martingale. To transfer this conclusion rigorously, set . The same computation for the stopped gives
This is again a P-local martingale. Moreover its absolute value is at most . Uniform integrability of makes the family over bounded stopping times uniformly integrable, so the product is a true martingale. This is the bounded-process density-product criterion.
The Bayes formula for conditional expectation therefore gives, for ,
Continuity gives , proving is a Q-local martingale. This proves the needed Girsanov theorem rather than invoking it.
For the Brownian-filtration conclusion, use this precise Brownian martingale representation theorem: every continuous local martingale in the usual augmentation of the natural Brownian filtration is an Itô integral with a predictable integrand locally square integrable in time. In particular
Define
On each finite horizon a strictly positive continuous has a positive pathwise minimum. Thus almost surely, and
The already proved measure-change result makes a continuous Q-local martingale. Its quadratic variation is , unchanged by its finite-variation correction. The Lévy characterization of Brownian motion proves
No additional exponential-integrability condition is needed, since the equivalent uniformly integrable density process is already given.
Use and write up to its interior-point swallowing time for a Loewner chain . The Chordal Loewner equation gives
The branch of the complex logarithm with argument in is well-defined while . The Itô formula yields the crucial cancellation
The drift is cancelled by the quadratic variation term, because . Thus both and are continuous local martingales, with
This is the logarithmic martingale for SLE4.
We justify absence of a finite swallowing time rather than presuming that the logarithm survives forever. On a finite horizon , . Also is bounded pathwise before . Indeed, while its drift has absolute value at most ; on each excursion outside , integrate from its starting point and bound the Brownian oscillation on . For example,
Therefore is bounded above pathwise on this interval.
Suppose . By the Dambis-Dubins-Schwarz theorem, is a Brownian motion run at its own quadratic variation. If that clock diverged as , Brownian oscillation would make unbounded above, contradicting the preceding bound. The one-sided bound criterion for a martingale clock therefore gives a finite clock limit and a finite real limit for . Hence is bounded away from zero near .
Now has a strictly positive limit at . The drift in is integrable there, so continuity of gives a finite limit for as well. The limiting point is in and away from the Loewner driver singularity, and the differential equation extends past , a contradiction. Thus almost surely. A point of the Loewner trace at a finite time belongs to that time's hull, so
This proves the fixed-interior-point avoidance of SLE4 without using simplicity as an input.
The angle remains in at all finite times. The bounded local martingale criterion upgrades its local martingale equation to a genuine martingale:
In particular this is the SLE4 angle martingale, and it converges almost surely and in by bounded martingale convergence theorem.
It remains to identify the limiting angle using the assumed simple path tending to infinity. Orient that path from to infinity. Its left component is the one adjacent to the negative real half-axis. Under , the left boundary of the slit domain maps to and the right boundary to . The harmonic measure of the former as seen from is
This follows by conformal invariance of planar Brownian motion: in the upper half-plane, is the bounded harmonic function with values on the left half-axis and on the right.
To justify the limiting boundary classification, condition on a simple proper realization of the path and use an independent planar Brownian motion from . It exits the upper half-plane in finite time almost surely, so its path up to that time is compact. The curve tends to infinity, so its intersection with this compact set is contained in a finite initial curve segment. Once that segment has been drawn, the Brownian path exits the slit domain through its left boundary exactly when is in the final left component: a path from that component cannot reach the right boundary without crossing the curve, and the reverse assertion holds on the right. Endpoints have zero harmonic measure. Bounded convergence of these exit indicators proves
Taking expectations in the bounded angle martingale gives the SLE4 left-passage probability
For the imaginary axis it is ; near the negative real axis it tends to , fixing the orientation of “left”.