Some Aspects Of Brownian Motion

The following notes represent approximately the second half of the lectures I gave in the Nachdiplomvorlesung, in ETH, Zurich, between October 1991 and February 1992, together with the contents of six additional lectures I gave in ETH, in November and December 1993. Part I, the elder brother of the present book [Part II], aimed at the computation, as explicitly as possible, of a number of interesting functionals of Brownian motion. It may be natural that Part II, the younger brother, looks more into the main technique with which Part I was "working", namely: martingales and stochastic calculus. As F. Knight writes, in a review article on Part I, in which research on Brownian motion is compared to gold mining: "In the days of P. Levy, and even as late as the theorems of "Ray and Knight" (1963), it was possible for the practiced eye to pick up valuable reward without the aid of much technology . . . Thereafter, however, the rewards are increasingly achieved by the application of high technology". Although one might argue whether this golden age is really foregone, and discuss the "height" of the technology involved, this quotation is closely related to the main motivations of Part II: this technology, which includes stochastic calculus for general discontinuous semi-martingales, enlargement of filtrations, . . .

Stochastic calculus and excursion theory are very efficient tools for obtaining either exact or asymptotic results about Brownian motion and related processes. This book focuses on special classes of Brownian functionals, including Gaussian subspaces of the Gaussian space of Brownian motion; Brownian quadratic funtionals; Brownian local times; Exponential functionals of Brownian motion with drift; Time spent by Brownian motion below a multiple of its one-sided supremum.

Fractional Brownian motion (fBm) is a stochastic process which deviates significantly from Brownian motion and semimartingales, and others classically used in probability theory. As a centered Gaussian process, it is characterized by the stationarity of its increments and a medium- or long-memory property which is in sharp contrast with martingales and Markov processes. FBm has become a popular choice for applications where classical processes cannot model these non-trivial properties; for instance long memory, which is also known as persistence, is of fundamental importance for financial data and in internet traffic. The mathematical theory of fBm is currently being developed vigorously by a number of stochastic analysts, in various directions, using complementary and sometimes competing tools. This book is concerned with several aspects of fBm, including the stochastic integration with respect to it, the study of its supremum and its appearance as limit of partial sums involving stationary sequences, to name but a few. The book is addressed to researchers and graduate students in probability and mathematical statistics. With very few exceptions (where precise references are given), every stated result is proved.

This eagerly awaited textbook covers everything the graduate student in probability wants to know about Brownian motion, as well as the latest research in the area. Starting with the construction of Brownian motion, the book then proceeds to sample path properties like continuity and nowhere differentiability. Notions of fractal dimension are introduced early and are used throughout the book to describe fine properties of Brownian paths. The relation of Brownian motion and random walk is explored from several viewpoints, including a development of the theory of Brownian local times from random walk embeddings. Stochastic integration is introduced as a tool and an accessible treatment of the potential theory of Brownian motion clears the path for an extensive treatment of intersections of Brownian paths. An investigation of exceptional points on the Brownian path and an appendix on SLE processes, by Oded Schramm and Wendelin Werner, lead directly to recent research themes.

Following the publication of the Japanese edition of this book, several inter esting developments took place in the area. The author wanted to describe some of these, as well as to offer suggestions concerning future problems which he hoped would stimulate readers working in this field. For these reasons, Chapter 8 was added. Apart from the additional chapter and a few minor changes made by the author, this translation closely follows the text of the original Japanese edition. We would like to thank Professor J. L. Doob for his helpful comments on the English edition. T. Hida T. P. Speed v Preface The physical phenomenon described by Robert Brown was the complex and erratic motion of grains of pollen suspended in a liquid. In the many years which have passed since this description, Brownian motion has become an object of study in pure as well as applied mathematics. Even now many of its important properties are being discovered, and doubtless new and useful aspects remain to be discovered. We are getting a more and more intimate understanding of Brownian motion.

Here is easy reference to a wealth of facts and formulae associated with Brownian motion, collecting in one volume more than 2500 numbered formulae. The book serves as a basic reference for researchers, graduate students, and people doing applied work with Brownian motion and diffusions, and can be used as a source of explicit examples when teaching stochastic processes.