Potential theory of infinite dimensional Lévy processes

We study the potential theory of a large class of infinite dimensional Lévy processes, including Brownian motion on abstract Wiener spaces. The key result is the construction of compact Lyapunov functions, i.e., excessive functions with compact level sets. Then many techniques from classical potential theory carry over to this infinite dimensional setting. Thus a number of potential theoretic properties and principles can be proved, answering long standing open problems even for the Brownian motion on abstract Wiener space, as, e.g., formulated by R. Carmona in 1980. In particular, we prove the analog of the known result, that the Cameron-Martin space is polar, in the Lévy case and apply the technique of controlled convergence to solve the Dirichlet problem with general (not necessarily continuous) boundary data.     

Large deviations for local time fractional Brownian motion and applications

Let be a fractional Brownian motion of Hurst index H∈(0,1) with values in R, and let be the local time process at zero of a strictly stable Lévy process of index 1<α?2 independent of WH. The α-stable local time fractional Brownian motion is defined by ZH(t)=WH(Lt). The process ZH is self-similar with self-similarity index and is related to the scaling limit of a continuous time random walk with heavy-tailed waiting times between jumps [P. Becker-Kern, M.M. Meerschaert, H.P. Scheffler, Limit theorems for coupled continuous time random walks, Ann. Probab. 32 (2004) 730-756; M.M. Meerschaert, H.P. Scheffler, Limit theorems for continuous time random walks with infinite mean waiting times, J. Appl. Probab. 41 (2004) 623-638]. However, ZH does not have stationary increments and is non-Gaussian. In this paper we establish large deviation results for the process ZH. As applications we derive upper bounds for the uniform modulus of continuity and the laws of the iterated logarithm for ZH.     

Kato class measures of symmetric Markov processes under heat kernel estimates

We establish the coincidence of two classes of Kato class measures in the framework of symmetric Markov processes admitting upper and lower estimates of heat kernel under mild conditions. One class of Kato class measures is defined by way of the heat kernel, another is defined in terms of the Green kernel depending on some exponents related to the heat kernel estimates. We also prove that pth integrable functions on balls with radius 1 having a uniformity of its norm with respect to centers are of Kato class if p is greater than a constant related to the estimate under the same conditions. These are complete extensions of some results for the Brownian motion on Euclidean space by Aizenman and Simon. Our result can be applicable to many examples, for instance, symmetric (relativistic) stable processes, jump processes on d-sets, Brownian motions on Riemannian manifolds, diffusions on fractals and so on.     

Optimality of the barrier strategy in de Finetti’s dividend problem for spectrally negative Lévy processes: An alternative approach

The optimal dividend problem proposed in de Finetti [1] is to find the dividend-payment strategy that maximizes the expected discounted value of dividends which are paid to the shareholders until the company is ruined. Avram et al. [9] studied the case when the risk process is modelled by a general spectrally negative Lévy process and Loeffen [10] gave sufficient conditions under which the optimal strategy is of the barrier type. Recently Kyprianou et al. [11] strengthened the result of Loeffen [10] which established a larger class of Lévy processes for which the barrier strategy is optimal among all admissible ones. In this paper we use an analytical argument to re-investigate the optimality of barrier dividend strategies considered in the three recent papers.