Brownian motion on a homogeneous random fractal

Summary We introduce a simple random fractal based on the Sierpinski gasket and construct a Brownian motion upon the fractal. The properties of the process on the Sierpinski gasket are modified by the random environment. A sample path construction of the process via time truncation is used, which is a direct construction of the process on the fractal from the associated Dirichlet forms. We obtain estimates on the resolvent and transition density for the process and hence a value for the spectral dimension which satisfiesd _s=2d _f/d_w. A branching process in a random environment can be used to deduce some of the sample path properties of the process.     

Reflecting Brownian motions: Quasimartingales and strong Caccioppoli sets

A notion ofstrong Caccioppoli set is defined for bounded Euclidean domains. It is shown that stationary (normally) reflecting Brownian motion on the closure of a bounded Euclidean domain is a quasimartingale on each compact time interval if and only if the domain is a strong Caccioppoli set. A similar result is shown to hold for symmetric reflecting diffusion processes.Research supported in part by NSF Grant DMS 91-01675.Research supported in part by NSF Grants DMS 86-57483 and 90-23335.     

Harmonic functions of subordinate killed Brownian motion

In this paper we study harmonic functions of subordinate killed Brownian motion in a domain D. We first prove that, when the killed Brownian semigroup in D is intrinsic ultracontractive, all nonnegative harmonic functions of the subordinate killed Brownian motion in D are continuous and then we establish a Harnack inequality for these harmonic functions. We then show that, when D is a bounded Lipschitz domain, both the Martin boundary and the minimal Martin boundary of the subordinate killed Brownian motion in D coincide with the Euclidean boundary ∂D. We also show that, when D is a bounded Lipschitz domain, a boundary Harnack principle holds for positive harmonic functions of the subordinate killed Brownian motion in D.     

Pseudo Jordan domains and reflecting Brownian motions

Summary The manifold metric between two points in a planar domain is the minimum of the lengths of piecewiseC ¹ curves in the domain connecting these two points. We define a bounded simply connected planar region to be a pseudo Jordan domain if its boundary under the manifold metric is topologically homeomorphic to the unit circle. It is shown that reflecting Brownian motionX on a pseudo Jordan domain can be constructed starting at all points except those in a boundary subset of capacity zero.X has the expected Skorokhod decomposition under a condition which is satisfied when G has finite 1-dimensional lower Minkowski content.     

Some extensions of the arc sine law as partial consequences of the scaling property of Brownian motion

Summary The scaling property of Brownian motion is exploited systematically in order to extend Paul Lévy's arc sine law to Brownian motion perturbed by its local time at 0. Other important ingredients of the proofs are some Ray-Knight theorems for local times.     

Distoriton of area and conditioned Brownian motion

Summary In a simply connected planar domainD the expected lifetime of conditioned Brownian motion may be viewed as a function on the set of hyperbolic geodesics for the domain. We show that each hyperbolic geodesic induces a decomposition ofD into disjoint subregions and that the subregions are obtained in a natural way using Euclidean geometric quantities relating toD. The lifetime associated with on each _j is then shown to be bounded by the product of the diameter of the smallest ball containing _j and the diameter of the largest ball in _j . Because this quantity is never larger than, and in general is much smaller than, the area of the largest ball in _j it leads to finite lifetime estimates in a variety of domains of infinite area.Research of the first author was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-9100811Research of the second author was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-9105407     

Reflecting Brownian motions and a deletion result for Sobolev spaces of order (1, 2)

Let D be an open set in ^d and E be a relatively closed subset of D having zero Lebesgue measure. A necessary and sufficient integral condition is given for the Sobolev spaces W ^1,2 (D) and W ^1,2(D\E) to be the same. The latter is equivalent to (normally) reflecting Brownian motion (RBM) on being indistinguishable (in distribution) from RBM on . This integral condition is satisfied, for example, when E has zero (d–1)-dimensional Hausdorff measure. Therefore it is possible to delete from D a relatively closed subset E having positive capacity but nevertheless the RBM on is indistinguishable from the RBM on , or equivalently, W ^1,2(D\E)=W^1,2(D). An example of such kind is: D=² and E is the Cantor set. In the proof of above mentioned results, a detailed study of RBMs on general open sets is given. In particular, a semimartingale decomposition and approximation result previously proved in [3] for RBMs on bounded open sets is extended to the case of unbounded open sets.Research supported in part by NSF Grant DMS 86-57483.     

Reflected Brownian motion in a cone: Semimartingale property

Summary In this paper, the object of study is reflected Brownian motion in a cone ind-dimensions (d3) with nonconstant oblique reflection on each radial line emanating from the vertex of the cone. The basic question considered here is When is this process a semimartingale?. Conditions for the existence and uniqueness of the process for which the vertex is an instantaneous state were given by Kwon, which is resolved in terms of a real parameter depending on the cone and the direction of reflection. It is shown that starting from any point of the cone, the process is a semimartingale if < 1, + 0 and not a semimartingale if < < 2.This research is supported by KOSEF grant 941-0100-011-1     

An excursion approach to maxima of the Brownian bridge

Distributions of functionals of Brownian bridge arise as limiting distributions in non-parametric statistics. In this paper we will give a derivation of distributions of extrema of the Brownian bridge based on excursion theory for Brownian motion. The idea of rescaling and conditioning on the local time has been used widely in the literature. In this paper it is used to give a unified derivation of a number of known distributions, and a few new ones. Particular cases of calculations include the distribution of the Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistic and the Kuiper statistic.     

Self-similarity of Brownian motion and a large deviation principle for random fields on a binary tree

Summary Using self-similarity of Brownian motion and its representation as a product measure on a binary tree, we construct a random sequence of probability measures which converges to the distribution of the Brownian bridge. We establish a large deviation principle for random fields on a binary tree. This leads to a class of probability measures with a certain self-similarity property. The same construction can be carried out forC[0, 1]-valued processes and we can describe, for instance, aC[0, 1]-valued Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process as a large deviation of Brownian sheet.     

Approximation via regularization of the local time of semimartingales and Brownian motion

Through a regularization procedure, a few schemes for approximation of the local time of a large class of continuous semimartingales and reversible diffusions are given. The convergence holds in the ucp sense. In the case of standard Brownian motion, we have been able to bound the rate of convergence in L²$L^2$, and to establish the a.s. convergence of some of our schemes.     

Conditioned Brownian motion in planar domains

Summary We give an upper bound for the Green functions of conditioned Brownian motion in planar domains. A corollary is the conditional gauge theorem in bounded planar domains.Supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9100244 and an AMS Centennial Fellowship     

Self-similarity and spectral asymptotics for the continuum random tree

We use the random self-similarity of the continuum random tree to show that it is homeomorphic to a post-critically finite self-similar fractal equipped with a random self-similar metric. As an application, we determine the mean and almost-sure leading order behaviour of the high frequency asymptotics of the eigenvalue counting function associated with the natural Dirichlet form on the continuum random tree. We also obtain short time asymptotics for the trace of the heat semigroup and the annealed on-diagonal heat kernel associated with this Dirichlet form.     

Estimates of transition densities for Brownian motion on nested fractals

Summary We obtain upper and lower bounds for the transition densities of Brownian motion on nested fractals. Compared with the estimate on the Sierpinski gasket, the results require the introduction of a new exponent,d _J, related to the shortest path metric and chemical exponent on nested fractals. Further, Hölder order of the resolvent densities, sample paths and local times are obtained. The results are obtained using the theory of multi-type branching processes.     

The uniform random tree in a Brownian excursion

Summary To any Brownian excursione with duration (e) and anyt ₁, ...,t _p [0,(e)], we associate a branching tree withp branches denoted byT _p (e, t ₁,...,t _p ), which is closely related to the structure of the minima ofe. Our main theorem states that, ife is chosen according to the Itô measure and (t ₁, ...,t _p ) according to Lebesgue measure on [0,(e)] ^p , the treeT _p (e, t ₁, ...,t _p ) is distributed according to the uniform measure on the set of trees withp branches. The proof of this result yields additional information about the subexcursions ofe corresponding to the different branches of the tree, thus generalizing a well-known representation theorem of Bismut. If we replace the Itô measure by the law of the normalized excursion, a simple conditioning argument leads to another remarkable result originally proved by Aldous with a very different method.     

On the semimartingale representation of reflecting Brownian motion in a cusp

Summary LetC be the symmetric cusp {(x, y)²:–x yx ,x0} where >1. In this paper we decide whether or not reflecting Brownian motion inC has a semimartingale representation. Here the reflecting Brownian motion has directions of reflection that make constant angles with the unit inward normals to the boundary. Our results carry through for a wide class of asymmetric cusps too.     

Quadratic functionals of Brownian motion

Functionals of Brownian motion can be dealt with by realizing them as functionals of white noise. Specifically, for quadratic functionals of Brownian motion, such a realization is a powerful tool to investigate them. There is a one-to-one correspondence between a quadratic functional of white noise and a symmetric L²(R²)-function which is considered as an integral kernel. By using well-known results on the integral operator we can study probabilistic properties of quadratic or certain exponential functionals of white noise. Two examples will illustrate their significance.