Stopped process ($X_t^{\tau }=X_{t\wedge \tau }$)

The stopped stochastic process follows $X$ until the stopping time $\tau$ and thereafter keeps the value $X_{\tau }$ when $\tau$ is finite. For a pathwise right-continuous adapted process, the stopped process is adapted, by progressive measurability and measurable evaluation at $t\wedge \tau$. When $X$ is a martingale, further stopping and integrability conditions determine whether its stopped process is a martingale.

For finite nonnegative adapted processes $Y_j$, set ${\tau }_a=\inf \{n:{\sum }_{j\le n}{Y}_j>a\}$ and $U_n={\sum }_{j<n}{Y}_j$. Stopping this one-step-lagged sum gives $A_n=a-U_{n\wedge {\tau }_a}\in [0,a]$, with $A_{n+1}-A_n=-Y_n{1}_{\{{\tau }_a>n\}}$. The latter is nonpositive and measurable at time $n$, so $A$ is a nonnegative supermartingale. The overshooting increment is excluded, which is essential to nonnegativity.