On a multiplicative functional transformation arising in nonlinear filtering theory

Summary This paper concerns the nonlinear filtering problem of calculating estimates Ef(x_t)¦y _s, st] where {x _t} is a Markov process with infinitesimal generator A and {y _t} is an observation process given by dy _t=h(x_t)dt +dw_twhere {w _t} is a Brownian motion. If h(x_t) is a semimartingale then an unnormalized version of this estimate can be expressed in terms of a semigroup T _s,t ^y obtained by a certain y-dependent multiplicative functional transformation of the signal process {x _t}. The objective of this paper is to investigate this transformation and in particular to show that under very general conditions its extended generator is A _t ^y f=e^y(t)h(A– 1/2h²)(e^–y(t)h f).Work partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (Contract ET-76-C-01-2295) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology