Determinantal martingales and noncolliding diffusion processes

Two aspects of noncolliding diffusion processes have been extensively studied. One of them is the fact that they are realized as harmonic Doob transforms of absorbing particle systems in the Weyl chambers. Another aspect is integrability in the sense that any spatio-temporal correlation function can be expressed by a determinant. The purpose of the present paper is to clarify the connection between these two aspects. We introduce a notion of determinantal martingale and prove that, if the system has determinantal-martingale representation, then it is determinantal. In order to demonstrate the direct connection between the two aspects, we study three processes.     

A canonical setting and separating times for continuous local martingales

The notion of a separating time for a pair of measures on a filtered space is helpful for studying problems of (local) absolute continuity and singularity of measures. In this paper, we describe a certain canonical setting for continuous local martingales (abbreviated below as CLMs) and find an explicit form of separating times for CLMs in this setting.     

Exit probability estimates for martingales in geodesic balls,using curvature

Summary Kallenberg and Sztencel have recently discovered exponential upper bounds, independent of dimension, on the probability that a vector martingale will exit from a ball in Euclidean space by timet. This article extends their results to martingales on Riemannian manifolds, including Brownian motion, and shows how exit probabilities depend on curvature. Using comparison with rotationally symmetric manifolds, these estimates are easily computable, and are sharp up to a constant factor in certain cases.     

On reflecting diffusion processes and Skorokhod decompositions

Summary LetG be ad-dimensional bounded Euclidean domain, H¹ (G) the set off in L²(G) such that f (defined in the distribution sense) is in L²(G). Reflecting diffusion processes associated with the Dirichlet spaces (H¹(G), ) on L²(G, dx) are considered in this paper, where A=(a^ij is a symmetric, bounded, uniformly ellipticd×d matrix-valued function such thata ^ij H¹(G) for eachi,j, and H¹(G) is a positive bounded function onG which is bounded away from zero. A Skorokhod decomposition is derived for the continuous reflecting Markov processes associated with (H¹(G), ) having starting points inG under a mild condition which is satisfied when G has finite (d–1)-dimensional lower Minkowski content.     

Jump-diffusion processes in random environments

In this paper we investigate jump-diffusion processes in random environments which are given as the weak solutions of SDEs. We formulate conditions ensuring existence and uniqueness in law of solutions. We investigate the Markov property. To prove uniqueness we solve a general martingale problem for càdlàg processes. This result is of independent interest. Application of our results to generalized exponential Lévy model are present in the last section.     

Abstract nonlinear prediction and operator martingales

In the first part of this paper, nonlinear prediction theory of vector valued random variables in Orlicz spaces is presented. The spaces need not be reflexive and the results of this part are essentially best possible for these spaces. The second part considers operator valued martingales in the strong operator topology and various convergence theorems are proved for them. Again the results are optimal for the Orlicz space situation. These are specialized to the scalar case showing that the well-known martingale convergence theorem can be obtained from the well-known Andersen-Jessen theorem. A few applications are also given. The same ideas and methods of computation unify the otherwise almost independent parts.     

Convergence of Riesz space martingales

We prove a martingale convergence for sub and super martingales on Riesz spaces. As a consequence we can form Krickeberg and Riesz like decompositions. The minimality of the Krickeberg decomposition yields a natural ordered lattice structure on the space of convergent martingales making this space into a Dedekind complete Riesz space. Finally we show that the Riesz space of convergent martingales is Riesz isomorphic to the order closure of the union of the ranges of the conditional expectations in the filtration. Consequently we can characterize the space of order convergent martingales both in Riesz spaces and in the setting of probability spaces.     

Constructions of coupling processes for Lévy processes

We construct optimal Markov couplings of Lévy processes, whose Lévy (jump) measure has an absolutely continuous component. The construction is based on properties of subordinate Brownian motions and the coupling of Brownian motions by reflection.     

Weak Dirichlet processes with a stochastic control perspective

The motivation of this paper is to prove verification theorems for stochastic optimal control of finite dimensional diffusion processes without control in the diffusion term, in the case where the value function is assumed to be continuous in time and once differentiable in the space variable (C^0,1$C^{0,1}$) instead of once differentiable in time and twice in space (C^1,2$C^{1,2}$), like in the classical results. For this purpose, the replacement tool of the Itô formula will be the Fukushima–Dirichlet decomposition for weak Dirichlet processes. Given a fixed filtration, a weak Dirichlet process is the sum of a local martingale M$M$ plus an adapted process A$A$ which is orthogonal, in the sense of covariation, to any continuous local martingale. The decomposition mentioned states that a C^0,1$C^{0,1}$ function of a weak Dirichlet process with finite quadratic variation is again a weak Dirichlet process. That result is established in this paper and it is applied to the strong solution of a Cauchy problem with final condition.     

On permanental processes

Permanental processes can be viewed as a generalization of squared centered Gaussian processes. We analyze the connections of these processes with the local time process of general Markov processes. The obtained results are related to the notion of infinite divisibility.     

Stitching pairs of Lévy processes into harnesses

We consider natural exponential families of Lévy processes with randomized parameter. Such processes are Markov, and under suitable assumptions, pairs of such processes with shared randomization can be “stitched together” into a single harness. The stitching consists of deterministic reparametrization of the time for both processes, so that they run on adjacent time intervals, and of the choice of the appropriate law at the boundary.     

Reflection principle and Ocone martingales

Let M=_(Mt)t≥0$M={\left(M_t\right)}_{t\ge 0}$ be any continuous real-valued stochastic process. We prove that if there exists a sequence _(an)n≥1${\left(a_n\right)}_{n\ge 1}$ of real numbers which converges to 0 and such that M$M$ satisfies the reflection property at all levels _an$a_n$ and 2_an$2a_n$ with n≥1$n\ge 1$, then M$M$ is an Ocone local martingale with respect to its natural filtration. We state the subsequent open question: is this result still true when the property only holds at levels _an$a_n$? We prove that this question is equivalent to the fact that for Brownian motion, the σ$\sigma$-field of the invariant events by all reflections at levels _an$a_n$, n≥1$n\ge 1$ is trivial. We establish similar results for skip free Z$\mathbb{Z}$-valued processes and use them for the proof in continuous time, via a discretization in space.     

The Lamperti correspondence extended to Lévy processes and semi-stable Markov processes in locally compact groups

We establish Lamperti representations for semi-stable Markov processes in locally compact groups. We also study the particular cases of processes with values in R$\mathbb{R}$ and C$\mathbb{C}$ under the hypothesis that they do not visit 0. These Lamperti representations yield some properties of these semi-stable Markov processes.     

An optimal stopping problem for fragmentation processes

In this article we consider a toy example of an optimal stopping problem driven by fragmentation processes. We show that one can work with the concept of stopping lines to formulate the notion of an optimal stopping problem and moreover, to reduce it to a classical optimal stopping problem for a generalized Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process associated with Bertoin’s tagged fragment. We go on to solve the latter using a classical verification technique thanks to the application of aspects of the modern theory of integrated exponential Lévy processes.     

Path processes and historical superprocesses

Summary A superprocessX over a Markov process can be obtained by a passage to the limit from a branching particle system for which describes the motion of individual particles.The historical process for is the process whose state at timet is the path of over time interval [0,t]. The superprocess over the historical superprocess over —reflects not only the particle distribution at any fixed time but also the structure of family trees. The principal property of a historical process is that is a function of for alls<t. Every process with this property is calleda path process. We develop a theory of superprocesses over path processes whose core is the integration with respect to measure-functionals. By applying this theory to historical superprocesses we construct the first hitting distributions and prove a special Markov property for superprocesses.Partially supported by National Science Foundation Grant DMS-8802667     

Birth delay of a Markov process and the stopping distributions for regular processes

Summary We consider Markov processes with a fixed transition functionp(r, x; t, B) and with random birth times. We show that a process can be obtained from (X _t ,P) by birth delay if and only if for allt andB. As an application, we give a new version and a new proof of the results of Rost [R] and Fitzsimmons [F2] on stopping distributions of Markov processes. The key Lemma 1.1 replaces the filling scheme used by the previous authors.Birth delay was considered from a different prospective in [F1].Partially supported by the National Science Foundation Grant DMS-8802667