We consider Brox's model: a one-dimensional diffusion in a Brownian potential W. We show that the normalized local time process (L(t;m_(log t) + x)=t; x \in R), where m_(log t) is the bottom of the deepest valley reached by the process before time t, behaves asymptotically like a process which only depends on W. As a consequence, we get the weak convergence of the local time to a functional of two independent three-dimensional Bessel processes and thus the limit law of the supremum of the normalized local time. These results are discussed and compared to the discrete time and space case which same questions have been solved recently by N. Gantert, Y. Peres and Z. Shi.
Using the generators, we establish a connection between the Sinai's random walk and the so-called Brox process. We first find the Dirichlet form of the Brox diffusion, and then prove that it is the limit of the Dirichlet form of the Sinai's random walk. This also gives a natural way to connect between the Brox diffusion and the Brownian motion.
We give explictly the probability density of the local time of the Brox diffusion at first passage times. Such formula is used to find the moments and to related the minima and maxima of the environment to the most and least visted points of the diffusion.
We construct the infinitesimal generator of the Brox diffusion on a line with a periodic Brownian environment. This gives a new construction of the process and allows to solve the singular martingale problem. We prove that the associated semigroup is strong Feller with Gaussian lower and upper bounds. This also yields a construction of the Brox diffusion on a segment with periodic or Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this bounded space, we prove that there exists a unique measure and the existence of a spectral gap giving exponential ergodicity of the diffusion.
This paper studies the weak and strong solutions to the stochastic differential equation $ dX(t)=-\frac12 \dot W(X(t))dt+d\mathcal{B}(t)$, where $(\mathcal{B}(t), t\ge 0)$ is a standard Brownian motion and $W(x)$ is a two sided Brownian motion, independent of $\mathcal{B}$. It is shown that the Itô-McKean representation associated with any Brownian motion (independent of $W$) is a weak solution to the above equation. It is also shown that there exists a unique strong solution to the equation. Itô calculus for the solution is developed. For dealing with the singularity of drift term $\int_0^T \…
We carry out an study of the Brox diffusion with killing. It turns out that when leaving fixed the environment one is able to recast some theory of diffusion and differential operators to deal with the ill-posed generator of the Brox diffusion. Our first main result is to give a close form of the Green operator associated to the generator, i.e. the inverse of the generator. We do so by setting the Lagrange identity in this context. Then, we give explicit expressions in quenched form of the probability density function of the process; such object is given in terms of the spectral decomposition …
We consider a family of one-dimensional diffusions, in dynamical Wiener mediums, which are random perturbations of the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck diffusion process. We prove quenched and annealed convergences in distribution and under weighted total variation norms. We find two kind of stationary probability measures, which are either the standard normal distribution or a quasi-invariant measure, depending on the environment, and which is naturally connected to a random dynamical system. We apply these results to the study of a model of time-inhomogeneous Brox's diffusions, which generalizes the diffu…
We prove that the local times of a sequence of Sinai's random walks convergence to those of Brox's diffusion by proper scaling, which is accord with the result of Seignourel (2000). Our proof is based on the convergence of the branching processes in random environment by Kurtz (1979).
We study a model of diffusion in a brownian potential. This model was firstly introduced by T. Brox (1986) as a continuous time analogue of random walk in random environment. We estimate the deviations of this process above or under its typical behavior. Our results rely on different tools such as a representation introduced by Y. Hu, Z. Shi and M. Yor, Kotani's lemma, introduced at first by K. Kawazu and H. Tanaka (1997), and a decomposition of hitting times developed in a recent article by A. Fribergh, N. Gantert and S. Popov (2008). Our results are in agreement with their results in the dis…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of the maximum local time L*(t) of the Brox's process, the diffusion in Brownian environment. Shi proved that the maximum speed of L*(t) is surprisingly, at least t log(log(log t)) whereas in the discrete case it is t. We show here that t log(log(log t)) is the proper rate and we prove that for the minimum speed the rate is the same as in the discrete case namely t/log(log(log t)).
According to a theorem of S. Schumacher and T. Brox, for a diffusion $X$ in a Brownian environment it holds that $(X_t-b_{\log t})/\log^2t\to 0 $ in probability, as $t\to\infty$, where $b_{\cdot}$ is a stochastic process having an explicit description and depending only on the environment. We compute the distribution of the number of sign changes for $b$ on an interval $[1,x]$ and study some of the consequences of the computation; in particular we get the probability of $b$ keeping the same sign on that interval. These results have been announced in 1999 in a non-rigorous paper by P. Le Doussa…
For a time-homogeneous, one-dimensional diffusion process $X(t),$ we investigate the distribution of the first instant, after a given time $r,$ at which $X(t)$ exceeds its maximum on the interval $[0,r],$ generalizing a result of Papanicolaou, which is valid for Brownian motion.
In this paper we study the fluctuations from the limiting behavior of small noise random perturbations of diffusions with multiple scales. The result is then applied to the exit problem for multiscale diffusions, deriving the limiting law of the joint distribution of the exit time and exit location. We apply our results to the first order Langevin equation in a rough potential, studying both fluctuations around the typical behavior and the conditional limiting exit law, conditional on the rare event of going against the underlying deterministic flow.
Let (Xt, t >= 0) be a diffusion process with jumps, sum of a Brownian motion with drift and a compound Poisson process. We consider T_x the first hitting time of a fixed level x > 0 by (Xt, t >= 0). We prove that the law of T_x has a density (defective when E(X1) < 0) with respect to the Lebesgue measure.
By using a change of scale and space, we study a class of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) whose solutions are drift--perturbed and exhibit behaviour analogous to standard Brownian motion including to the Law of the Iterated Logarithm (LIL). Sufficient conditions ensuring that these processes obey the LIL are given.
In this paper we prove that, under certain conditions, a strong law of large numbers holds for a class of super-diffusions $X$ corresponding to the evolution equation $\partial_t u_t=L u_t+βu_t-ψ(u_t)$ on a bounded domain $D$ in $\R^d$, where $L$ is the generator of the underlying diffusion and the branching mechanism $ψ(x,λ)=1/2α(x)λ^2+\int_0^\infty (e^{-λr}-1+λr)n(x, {\rm d}r)$ satisfies $\sup_{x\in D}\int_0^\infty (r\wedge r^2) n(x,{\rm d}r)<\infty$.
When a Brownian motion is scaled according to the law of the iterated logarithm, its supremum converges to one as time tends to zero. Upper large deviations of the supremum process can be quantified by writing the problem in terms of hitting times and applying a result of Strassen (1967) on hitting time densities. We extend this to a small-time large deviations principle for the supremum of scaled Ito diffusions, using as our main tool a refinement of Strassen's result due to Lerche (1986).
In this paper we give a new proof to an Engelbert-Schmidt type zero-one law for time-homogeneous diffusions, which provides deterministic criteria for the convergence of integral functional of diffusions. Our proof is based on a slightly stronger assumption than that in Mijatović and Urusov (2012), and utilizes stochastic time change and Feller's test of explosions. It does not rely on advanced methods such as the first Ray-Knight theorem, Wiliam's theorem, Shepp's dichotomy result for Gaussian processes or Jeulin's lemma as in the previous literature(see Mijatović and Urusov (2012) for a poin…
We prove the emergence of stable fluctuations for reaction-diffusion in random environment with Weibull tails. This completes our work around the quenched to annealed transition phenomenon in this context of reaction diffusion. In [9], we had already considered the model treated here and had studied fully the regimes where the law of large numbers is satisfied and where the fluctuations are Gaussian, but we had left open the regime of stable fluctuations. Our work is based on a spectral approach centered on the classical theory of rank-one perturbations. It illustrates the gradual emergence of…
We prove that multidimensional diffusions in random environment have a limiting velocity which takes at most two different values. Further, in the two-dimensional case we show that for any direction, the probability to escape to infinity in this direction equals either zero or one. Combined with our results on the limiting velocity, this implies a strong law of large numbers in two dimensions.
Let X be a d-dimensional diffusion and M the running supremum of its first component. In this paper, we show that for any t > 0, the density (with respect to the d + 1-dimensional Lebesgue measure) of the pair (Mt, Xt) is a weak solution of a Fokker-Planck partial differential equation on the closed set {(m, x) $\in$ R d+1, m $\ge$ x 1}, using an integral expansion of this density.
We investigate exit times from domains of attraction for the motion of a self-stabilized particle traveling in a geometric (potential type) landscape and perturbed by Brownian noise of small amplitude. Self-stabilization is the effect of including an ensemble-average attraction in addition to the usual state-dependent drift, where the particle is supposed to be suspended in a large population of identical ones. A Kramers' type law for the particle's exit from the potential's domains of attraction and a large deviations principle for the self-stabilizing diffusion are proved. It turns out that …
In this article, it is proved that for any cumulative distribution function with compact support and a specified t > 0, there exists a diffusion martingale which has this law at time t. The article proves existence; no claims are made about uniqueness. After a discussion on strings and associated semigroups, the article gives a re-working of a standard approach to the problem of constructing an explicit discrete time martingale diffusion on a finite state space which, for a random geometrically distributed time that is independent of the diffusion, the law of the diffusion stopped at this rand…
For a Markov process associated with a diffusion type Dirichlet form an upper bound is shown for the law of the finite dimensional distributions of the process. Under some more assumptions on the underlaying space this is also shown for the law of the Markov process itself. In the last section we want to give an application to the Wasserstein diffusion.
The present work investigates the asymptotic behaviors, at the zero-noise limit, of the first collision-time and first collision-location related to a pair of self-stabilizing diffusions and of their related particle approximations. These asymptotic are considered in a peculiar framework where diffusions evolve in a double-wells landscape and where collisions manifest due to the combined action of the Brownian motions driving each diffusion and the action of a self-stabilizing kernel. As the Brownian effects vanish, we show that first collision-times grow at an explicit exponential rate and th…
We study the martingale problem associated with the operator $L u = \partial_s u + 1/2 \sum_{i,j=1}^{d_0} a^{ij} \partial_{ij} u + \sum_{i,j=1}^d B^{ij} x^j \partial_i u$, where $d_0 \leq d$. We show that the martingale problem is well-posed when the function $a$ is continuous and strictly positive-definite on $\bb R^{d_0}$ and the matrix $B$ takes a particular lower-diagonal, block form. We then localize this result to show that the martingale problem remains well-posed when $B$ is replaced by a sufficiently smooth vector field whose Jacobian matrix satisfies a nondegeneracy condition.
We consider a one-dimensional diffusion in a stable Lévy environment. We show that the normalized local time process refocused at the bottom of the standard valley with height $\log t$, $(L_X(t,\mathfrak m_{\log t}+x)/t,x\in \R)$, converges in law to a functional of two independent Lévy processes conditioned to stay positive. To prove this result, we show that the law of the standard valley is close to a two-sided Lévy process conditioned to stay positive. We also obtain the limit law of the supremum of the normalized local time. This result has been obtained by Andreoletti and Diel in the cas…
This article presents a new and easily implementable method to quantify the so-called coupling distance between the law of a time series and the law of a differential equation driven by Markovian additive jump noise with heavy-tailed jumps, such as $α$-stable Lévy flights. Coupling distances measure the proximity of the empirical law of the tails of the jump increments and a given power law distribution. In particular they yield an upper bound for the distance of the respective laws on path space. We prove rates of convergence comparable to the rates of the central limit theorem which are conf…
We consider a one-dimensional diffusion process $X$ in a $(-κ/2)$-drifted Brownian potential for $κ\neq 0$. We are interested in the maximum of its local time, and study its almost sure asymptotic behaviour, which is proved to be different from the behaviour of the maximum local time of the transient random walk in random environment. We also obtain the convergence in law of the maximum local time of $X$ under the annealed law after suitable renormalization when $κ\geq 1$. Moreover, we characterize all the upper and lower classes for the hitting times of $X$, in the sense of Paul Lévy, and pro…
Given a random variable $F$ regular enough in the sense of the Malliavin calculus, we are able to measure the distance between its law and almost any continuous probability law on the real line. The bounds are given in terms of the Malliavin derivative of $F$. Our approach is based on the theory of Itô diffusions and the stochastic calculus of variations. Several examples are considered in order to illustrate our general results.
Let $X$ be the branching particle diffusion corresponding to the operator $Lu+β(u^{2}-u)$ on $D\subseteq \mathbb{R}^{d}$ (where $β\geq 0$ and $β\not\equiv 0$). Let $λ_{c}$ denote the generalized principal eigenvalue for the operator $L+β$ on $D$ and assume that it is finite. When $λ_{c}>0$ and $L+β-λ_{c}$ satisfies certain spectral theoretical conditions, we prove that the random measure $\exp \{-λ_{c}t\}X_{t}$ converges almost surely in the vague topology as $t$ tends to infinity. This result is motivated by a cluster of articles due to Asmussen and Hering dating from the mid-seventies as wel…
We consider a transport-diffusion equation forced by random noise of three types: additive, linear multiplicative in It$\hat{\mathrm{o}}$'s interpretation, and transport in Stratonovich's interpretation. Via convex integration modified to probabilistic setting, we prove existence of a divergence-free vector field with spatial regularity in Sobolev space and corresponding solution to a transport-diffusion equation with spatial regularity in Lebesgue space, and consequently non-uniqueness in law at the level of probabilistically strong solutions globally in time.
We discuss some applications of the Mittag-Leffler function and related probability distributions in the theory of renewal processes and continuous time random walks. In particular we show the asymptotic (long time) equivalence of a generic power law waiting time to the Mittag-Leffler waiting time distribution via rescaling and respeeding the clock of time. By a second respeeding (by rescaling the spatial variable) we obtain the diffusion limit of the continuous time random walk under power law regimes in time and in space. Finally, we exhibit the time-fractional drift process as a diffusion l…
The purpose of this paper is to study optimal control of conditional McKean-Vlasov (mean-field) stochastic differential equations with jumps (conditional McKean-Vlasov jump diffusions, for short). To this end, we first prove a stochastic Fokker-Planck equation for the conditional law of the solution of such equations. Combining this equation with the original state equation, we obtain a Markovian system for the state and its conditional law. Furthermore, we apply this to formulate an Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation for the optimal control of conditional McKean-Vlasov jump diffusions. Th…
The Mellin transform is usually applied in probability theory to the product of independent random variables. In recent times the machinery of the Mellin transform has been adopted to describe the Lévy stable distributions, and more generally the probability distributions governed by generalized diffusion equations of fractional order in space and/or in time. In these cases the related stochastic processes are self-similar and are simply referred to as fractional diffusion processes. We provide some integral formulas involving the distributions of these processes that can be interpreted in ter…
We study a kinetic toy model for a spray of particles immersed in an ambient fluid, subject to some additional random forcing given by a mixing, space-dependent Markov process. Using the perturbed test function method, we derive the hydrodynamic limit of the kinetic system. The law of the limiting density satisfies a stochastic conservation equation in Stratonovich form, whose drift and diffusion coefficients are completely determined by the law of the stationary process associated with the Markovian perturbation.
We consider two-dimensional stochastic differential equations, describing the motion of a slowly and periodically forced overdamped particle in a double-well potential, subjected to weak additive noise. We give sharp asymptotics of Eyring-Kramers type for the expected transition time from one potential well to the other one. Our results cover a range of forcing frequencies that are large with respect to the maximal transition rate between potential wells of the unforced system. The main difficulty of the analysis is that the forced system is non-reversible, so that standard methods from potent…
The fractional diffusion-wave equation (FDWE) is a recent generalization of diffusion and wave equations via time and space fractional derivatives. The equation underlies Levy random walk and fractional Brownian motion and is foremost important in mathematical physics for such multidisciplinary applications as in finance, computational biology, acoustics, just to mention a few. Although the FDWE has been found to reflect anomalous energy dissipations, the physical significance of the equation has not been clearly explained in this regard. Here the attempt is made to interpret the FDWE via a ne…
Starting from the model of continuous time random walk, we focus our interest on random walks in which the probability distributions of the waiting times and jumps have fat tails characterized by power laws with exponent between 0 and 1 for the waiting times, between 0 and 2 for the jumps. By stating the relevant lemmata (of Tauber type) for the distribution functions we need not distinguish between continuous and discrete space and time. We will see that, by a well-scaled passage to the diffusion limit, generalized diffusion processes, fractional in time as well as in space, are obtained. The…
We study the first passage time (FPT) problem in Levy type of anomalous diffusion. Using the recently formulated fractional Fokker-Planck equation, we obtain an analytic expression for the FPT distribution which, in the large passage time limit, is characterized by a universal power law. Contrasting this power law with the asymptotic FPT distribution from another type of anomalous diffusion exemplified by the fractional Brownian motion, we show that the two types of anomalous diffusions give rise to two distinct scaling behavior.
We investigate coupled stochastic differential equations governing N non-negative continuous random variables that satisfy a conservation principle. In various fields a conservation law requires that a set of fluctuating variables be non-negative and (if appropriately normalized) sum to one. As a result, any stochastic differential equation model to be realizable must not produce events outside of the allowed sample space. We develop a set of constraints on the drift and diffusion terms of such stochastic models to ensure that both the non-negativity and the unit-sum conservation law constrain…
We study the almost sure behavior of solutions of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) as time goes to zero. Our main general result establishes a functional law of the iterated logarithm (LIL) that applies in the setting of SDEs with degenerate noise satisfying the weak Hormander condition but not the strong Hormander condition}. That is, SDEs in which the drift terms must be used in order to conclude hypoellipticity. As a corollary of this result, we obtain the almost sure behavior as time goes to zero of a given direction in the equation, even if noise is not present explicitly in that …
We show that the principle of maximum entropy, a variational method appearing in statistical inference, statistical physics, and the analysis of stochastic dynamical systems, admits a geometric description from gauge theory. Using the connection on a principal $G$-bundle, the gradient flow maximising entropy is written in terms of constraint functions which interact with the dynamics of the probabilistic degrees of freedom of a diffusion process. This allows us to describe the point of maximum entropy as parallel transport over the state space. In particular, it is proven that the solubility o…
