In this paper, a study of random times on filtered probability spaces is undertaken. The main message is that, as long as distributional properties of optional processes up to the random time are involved, there is no loss of generality in assuming that the random time is actually a randomised stopping time. This perspective has advantages in both the theoretical and practical study of optional processes up to random times. Applications are given to financial mathematics, as well as to the study of the stochastic behaviour of Brownian motion with drift up to its time of overall maximum as well as up to last-passage times over finite intervals. Furthermore, a novel proof of the Jeulin-Yor decomposition formula via Girsanov's theorem is provided.
We consider reflected backward stochastic differential equations with two general optional barriers. The solutions to these equations have the so-called regulated trajectories, i.e trajectories with left and right finite limits. We prove the existence and uniqueness of $\mathbb L^p$ solutions, $p\geq 1$, and show that the solutions may be approximated by a modified penalization method.
In this short note we consider RBSDE with Lipschitz drivers and barrier processes that are optional and right upper semicontinuous. We treat the case when the barrier can be represented as a decreasing limit of cadlag barriers. We combine well known existence results for cadlag barriers with comparison arguments for the control process to construct solutions. Finally, we highlight the connection of such RBSDEs with usual cadlag BSDEs.
In this work, we introduce a new Skorokhod problem with two reflecting barriers when the trajectories of the driven process and the barriers are right and left limited. We show that this problem has an explicit unique solution in a deterministic case. Then, we apply our result to study the existence and uniqueness of solutions of reflected stochastic differential equations with respect to optional semimartingales. The study is carried out on a probability space that does not necessarily satisfy the usual conditions.
Generalized conditional expectations, optional projections and predictable projections of stochastic processes play important roles in the general theory of stochastic processes, semimartingale theory and stochastic calculus. They share some important properties with ordinary conditional expectations. While the characterization of ordinary conditional expectations has been studied by several authors, no similar work seems to have been done for these three concepts. This paper aims at undertaking this task by giving And$\hat{o}$-Douglas type characterization theorem for each of them.
In this paper, we develop new optional stopping theorems for scenarios where the stopping rules are defined by bounded continuity regions. Moreover, we establish a wide variety of inequalities on the supremums and infimums of functions of stochastic processes over the whole range of time indexes.
We consider reflected backward stochastic differential equations with two optional barriers of class (D) satisfying Mokobodzki's separation condition and coefficient which is only continuous and non-increasing. We assume that data are merely integrable and the terminal time is an arbitrary (possibly infinite) stopping time. We study the problem of existence and uniqueness of solutions, and their connections with the value process in nonlinear Dynkin games.
Starting from an iterative and hence numerically easily implementable representation of the thin set of jumps of a càdlàg adapted stochastic process $X$ (including a few applications to the integration with respect to the jump measure of $X$), we develop similar representation techniques to describe the set of jumps of optional processes with regulated trajectories and introduce their induced jump measures with a view towards the framework of enlarged filtration in financial mathematics.
This article studies optional and predictable projections of integrands and convex-valued stochastic processes. The existence and uniqueness are shown under general conditions that are analogous to those for conditional expectations of integrands and random sets. In the convex case, duality correspondences between the projections and projections of epigraphs are given. These results are used to study projections of set-valued integrands. Consistently with the general theory of stochastic processes, projections are not constructed using reference measures on the optional and predictable sigma-a…
We study the optional projection of a standard Brownian motion on the natural filtration of certain kinds of observation processes. The observation process, $Y$, is defined as a solution of a stochastic differential equation such that it reveals some (possibly noisy) information about the signs of the Brownian motion when $Y$ hits 0. As such, the associated optional projections are related to Azéma's martingales which are obtained by projecting the Brownian motion onto the filtration generated by observing its signs.
In this paper we study the stochastic differential equations driven by $G$-Brownian motion ($G$-SDEs for short). We extend the notion of conditional $G$-expectation from deterministic time to the more general optional time situation. Then, via this conditional expectation, we develop the strong Markov property for $G$-SDEs. In particular, we obtain the strong Markov property for $G$-Brownian motion. Some applications including the reflection principle for $G$-Brownian motion are also provided.
There has been a renewed interest in exponential concentration inequalities for stochastic processes in probability and statistics over the last three decades. De la Peña \cite{d} establishes a nice exponential inequality for discrete time locally square integrable martingale . In this paper, we obtain de la Peña's inequalities for stochastic integral of multivariate point processes. The proof is primarily based on Doléans-Dade exponential formula and the optional stopping theorem. As application, we obtain an exponential inequality for block counting process in $Λ-$coalescents.
We consider reflected backward stochastic different equations with optional barrier and so-called regulated trajectories, i.e trajectories with left and right finite limits. We prove existence and uniqueness results. We also show that the solution may be approximated by a modified penalization method. Application to an optimal stopping problem is given.
This article characterizes topological duals of spaces of cadlag processes. We obtain extensions of functional analytic results of Dellacherie and Meyer that underlie many fundamental results in stochastic analysis. In particular, we obtain a characterization of the dual of cadlag processes of class $(D)$ in terms of optional measures of essentially bounded variation. When specialized to regular processes, we find extensions of the main result of Bismut \cite{bis78} on projections of continuous processes. The dual characterizations yield existence results and optimality conditions for many fun…
Consider the following equation $$\partial_t u_t(x)=\frac{1}{2}\partial _{xx}u_t(x)+λσ(u_t(x))\dot{W}(t,\,x)$$ on an interval. Under Dirichlet boundary condition, we show that in the long run, the second moment of the solution grows exponentially fast if $λ$ is large enough. But if $λ$ is small, then the second moment eventually decays exponentially. If we replace the Dirichlet boundary condition by the Neumann one, then the second moment grows exponentially fast no matter what $λ$ is. We also provide various extensions.
On the long time behaviour of single stochastic Hodgkin-Huxley neurons with constant signal, and a construction of circuits of interacting neurons showing self-organized rhythmic oscillations
We study a kinetic stochastic model with a non-linear time-inhomogeneous drag force and a Brownian-type random force. More precisely, the Kolmogorov type diffusion $(V,X)$ is considered: here $X$ is the position of the particle and $V$ is its velocity and is solution of a stochastic differential equation driven by a one-dimensional Brownian motion, with the drift of the form $t^{-β}F(v)$. The function $F$ satisfies some homogeneity condition and $β$ is positive. The behaviour of the process $(V,X)$ in large time is proved by using stochastic analysis tools.
A unified treatment is given of some results of H. Donnelly-P. Li and L. Schwartz concerning the behaviour of heat semigroups on open manifolds with given compactifications, on one hand, and the relationship with the behaviour at infinity of solutions of related stochastic differential equations on the other. A principal tool is the use of certain covers of the manifold: which also gives a non-explosion test. As a corollary we obtain known results about the behaviour of Brownian motions on a complete Riemannian manifold with Ricci curvature decaying at most quadratically in the distance functi…
This paper studies the asymptotic growth and decay properties of solutions of the stochastic pantograph equation with multiplicative noise. We give sufficient conditions on the parameters for solutions to grow at a polynomial rate in $p$-th mean and in the almost sure sense. Under stronger conditions the solutions decay to zero with a polynomial rate in $p$-th mean and in the almost sure sense. When polynomial bounds cannot be achieved, we show for a different set of parameters that exponential growth bounds of solutions in $p$-th mean and an almost sure sense can be obtained. Analogous result…
We study a continuous time stochastic process on strings made of two types of particles, whose dynamics mimics the behaviour of microtubules in a living cell; namely, the strings evolve via a competition between (local) growth/shrinking as well as (global) hydrolysis processes. We give a complete characterization of the phase diagram of the model, and derive several criteria of the transient and recurrent regimes for the underlying stochastic process.
This article gives dual representations for convex integral functionals on the linear space of regular processes. This space turns out to be a Banach space containing many more familiar classes of stochastic processes and its dual can be identified with the space of optional Radon measures with essentially bounded variation. Combined with classical Banach space techniques, our results allow for a systematic treatment of stochastic optimization problems over BV processes and, in particular, yields a maximum principle for a general class of singular stochastic control problems.
Given a sequence $(M^n)^{\infty}_{n=1}$ of nonnegative martingales starting at $M^n_0=1$, we find a sequence of convex combinations $(\widetilde{M}^n)^{\infty}_{n=1}$ and a limiting process $X$ such that $(\widetilde{M}^n_τ)^{\infty}_{n=1}$ converges in probability to $X_τ$, for all finite stopping times $τ$. The limiting process $X$ then is an optional strong supermartingale. A counterexample reveals that the convergence in probability cannot be replaced by almost sure convergence in this statement. We also give similar convergence results for sequences of optional strong supermartingales $(X…
In this article, we are interested in the behaviour of a single ferromagnetic mono-domain particle submitted to an external field with a stochastic perturbation. This model is the first step toward the mathematical understanding of thermal effects on a ferromagnet. In a first part, we present the stochastic model and prove that the associated stochastic differential equation is well defined. The second part is dedicated to the study of the long time behaviour of the magnetic moment and in the third part we prove that the stochastic perturbation induces a non reversibility phenomenon. Last, we …
Let the process Y(t) be a Skorohod integral process with respect to Brownian motion. We use a recent result by Tudor (2004), to prove that Y(t) can be represented as the limit of linear combinations of processes that are products of forward and backward Brownian martingales. Such a result is a further step towards the connection between the theory of continuous-time (semi)martingales, and that of anticipating stochastic integration. We establish an explicit link between our results and the classic characterization, due to Duc and Nualart (1990), of the chaotic decomposition of Skorohod integra…
One problem of wide interest involves estimating expected crossing-times. Several tools have been developed to solve this problem beginning with the works of Wald and the theory of sequential analysis. An extension of his approach is provided by the optional sampling theorem in conjunction with martingale inequalities. Deriving the explicit close form solution for the expected crossing times may be difficult. In this paper, we provide a framework that can be used to estimate expected crossing times of arbitrary stochastic processes. Our key assumption is the knowledge of the average behavior o…
We consider the theory of stopping bounded processes within the framework of Hudson--Parthasarathy quantum stochastic calculus, for both identity and vacuum adaptedness. This provides significant new insight into Coquio's method of stopping (J. Funct. Anal. 238:149-180, 2006). Vacuum adaptedness is required to express certain quantum stochastic representations, and many results, including the proof of the optional-sampling theorem, take a more natural form.
We begin by exploring the intuition of Brownian motion by explaining its birth through the observations of Robert Brown and later through Bachelier's work on its applications to the financial market and finally its rigorous and concretized form proposed by Norbert Wiener. The aforementioned motivates a stochastic differential equation to model the future price fluctuations of a stock traded wherein Itô integration is prominent and consequently expanded upon. The final part of this paper focuses on the accuracy of the model by backtesting it with Apple stock and deriving a correlation coefficie…
Given a stochastic structure with a filtration $\mathbb{F}$, the class of all random times whose conditional distribution functions are differentiable with respect to some $\mathbb{F}$ adapted non decreasing processes is considered. The main property of a random time in this class is that it can be isomorphically implanted into an auxiliary model which is absolutely continuous with respect to a Cox model. Three formulas are established: the conditional expectation formula, the optional splitting formula, and the enlargement of filtration formula. This study is particularly useful for models wh…
In this paper we study a representation problem first considered in a simpler version by Bank and El Karoui [2004]. A key ingredient to this problem is a random measure $μ$ on the time axis which in the present paper is allowed to have atoms. Such atoms turn out to not only pose serious technical challenges in the proof of the representation theorem, but actually have significant meaning in its applications, for instance, in irreversible investment problems. These applications also suggest to study the problem for processes which are measurable with respect to a Meyer-$σ$-field that lies betwe…
In this paper we consider the asymptotic behaviour of all moments of the interparticle distance and of all mixed moments of an isotropic Brownian stochastic flow which serves as a smooth approximation of the Arratia flow.
In this paper, we first establish the reflected backward stochastic difference equations with finite state (FS-RBSDEs for short). Then we explore the Existence and Uniqueness Theorem as well as the Comparison Theorem by "one step" method. The connections between FS-RBSDEs and optimal stopping time problems are investigated and we also show that the optimal stopping problems with multiple priors under Knightian uncertainty is a special case of our FS-RBSDEs. As a byproduct we develop the general theory of g-martingales in discrete time with finite state including Doob-Mayer Decomposition Theore…
Motivated by the study of trace for Schramm-Loewner evolutions, we consider evolutions of planar domains governed by ordinary differential equations with holomorphic vector fields $F$ defined on the upper half plane $\mathbb{H}$. We show a smoothing effect of the presence of noise on the boundary behaviour of associated conformal maps. More precisely, if $F$ is Hölder, we show that evolving domains vary continuously in uniform topology and their boundaries are continuously differentiable Jordan arcs. This is in contrast with examples from deterministic setting where the corner points on the bo…
The study of path behaviour of stochastic processes is a classical topic in probability theory and related areas. In this frame, a natural question one can address is: whether or not sample paths belong to a critical Hölder space? The answer to this question is negative in the case of Brownian motion and many other stochastic processes: it is well-known that despite the fact that Brownian paths satisfy, on each compact interval $I$, a Hölder condition of any order strictly less than $1/2$, they fail to belong to the critical Hölder space $\mathcal{C}^{1/2}(I)$. In this article, we show that a …
The existence of a (partial) market equilibrium price is proved in a complete, continuous time finite-agent market setting. The economic agents act as price takers in a fully competitive setting and maximize exponential utility from terminal wealth. As the number $N$ of economic agents goes to infinity, the BSDE system of $N$ equations characterizing the equilibrium asset price dynamics decouples. Due to the system's symmetry, the influence of the mean field of the agents, conditionally on the common noise, becomes deterministic.
We study the asymptotic behaviour of solutions of Forward Backward Stochastic Differential Equations in the coupled case, when the diffusion coefficient of the forward equation is multiplicatively perturbed by a small parameter that converges to zero. Furthermore, we establish a Large Deviation Principle for the laws of the corresponding processes.
The long time behaviour of solutions to stochastic porous media equations on smooth bounded domains with Dirichlet boundary data is studied. Based on weighted $L^{1}$-estimates the existence and uniqueness of invariant measures with optimal bounds on the rate of mixing are proved. Along the way the existence and uniqueness of entropy solutions is shown.
On the Dynamic Consistency of the Split Step Method for Classifying the Asymptotic Behaviour of Globally Stable Differential Equations perturbed by State--independent Stochastic terms
Dublin City University（都柏林城市大学）；The University of the West Indies（西印度群岛大学）
In this paper we characterise the global stability, global boundedness and recurrence of solutions of a scalar nonlinear stochastic differential equation. The differential equation is a perturbed version of a globally stable autonomous equation with unique equilibrium where the diffusion coefficient is independent of the state. We give conditions which depend on the rate of decay of the noise intensity under which solutions either (a) tend to the equilibrium almost surely, (b) are bounded almost surely but tend to zero with probability zero, (c) or are recurrent on the real line almost surely.…
Assume that a stochastic processes can be approximated, when some scale parameter gets large, by a fluid limit (also called "mean field limit", or "hydrodynamic limit"). A common practice, often called the "fixed point approximation" consists in approximating the stationary behaviour of the stochastic process by the stationary points of the fluid limit. It is known that this may be incorrect in general, as the stationary behaviour of the fluid limit may not be described by its stationary points. We show however that, if the stochastic process is reversible, the fixed point approximation is ind…
In this paper we consider the global stability of solutions of an affine stochastic differential equation. The differential equation is a perturbed version of a globally stable linear autonomous equation with unique zero equilibrium where the diffusion coefficient is independent of the state. We find necessary and sufficient conditions on the rate of decay of the noise intensity for the solution of the equation to be globally asymptotically stable, stable but not asymptotically stable, and unstable, each with probability one. In the case of stable or bounded solutions, or when solutions are a.…
In this paper we consider the global stability of solutions of a nonlinear stochastic differential equation. The differential equation is a perturbed version of a globally stable linear autonomous equation with unique zero equilibrium where the diffusion coefficient is independent of the state. Contingent on a dissipative condition characterising the asymptotic stability of the unperturbed equation, necessary and sufficient conditions on the rate of decay of the noise intensity for the solution of the equation to be a.s. globally asymptotically stable, contingent on some weak and noise indepen…
Deterministic approximations to stochastic Susceptible-Infectious-Susceptible models typically predict a stable endemic steady-state when above threshold. This can be hard to relate to the underlying stochastic dynamics, which has no endemic steady-state but can exhibit approximately stable behaviour. Here we relate the approximate models to the stochastic dynamics via the definition of the quasi-stationary distribution (QSD), which captures this approximately stable behaviour. We develop a system of ordinary differential equations that approximate the number of infected individuals in the QSD…
This is a significantly expanded version of the survey paper "Mixing and decay of correlations in non-uniformly expanding maps: a survey of recent results" math/0301319. We discuss recent results on decay of correlations for non-uniformly expanding maps. Throughout the discussion, we address the question of why different dynamical systems have different rates of decay of correlations and how this may reflect underlying geometrical characteristics of the system. We also give detailed sketches of some results such as the existence of absolutely continuous invariant measures for Markov expanding …
In this work, we are interested in the behaviour of a single ferromagnetic mono--domain particle submitted to an external field with a stochastic perturbation. This model is a step toward the mathematical understanding of thermal effects on ferromagnets. In a first part, we discuss modelling issues and propose several ways to integrate a random noise in the deterministic model. Then, among all these approaches, we focus on the more natural one and study its long time behaviour. We prove that the system converges to the unique stable equilibrium of the deterministic model and make precise the L…
We consider the dynamics of a periodic chain of N coupled overdamped particles under the influence of noise, in the limit of large N. Each particle is subjected to a bistable local potential, to a linear coupling with its nearest neighbours, and to an independent source of white noise. For strong coupling (of the order N^2), the system synchronises, in the sense that all oscillators assume almost the same position in their respective local potential most of the time. In a previous paper, we showed that the transition from strong to weak coupling involves a sequence of symmetry-breaking bifurca…
