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In the book Brownian Motion, 3rd edition by Rene Schilling, he defines a $d$-dimensional Brownian motion $B = (B_t)_{t\geq0}$ indexed by $[0,\infty)$ taking values in $\mathbb R^d$ as a process that satisfies

$$ \text{(B0)} \quad B_0 = 0, \quad a.s \\ \text{(B1)} \quad B_{t_n} - B_{t_{n-1}}, B_{t_{n-1}} - B_{t_{n-2}},..., B_{t_1}- B_{t_0}, \quad \text{are independent for all} \quad 0 =t_0 \leq t_1 \leq...\leq t_n \\ \text{(B2)} \quad B_t - B_s \sim B_{t+h} - B_{s+h} \quad \text{for all} \quad 0 \leq s <t, h \geq -s \\ \text{(B3)} \quad B_t -B_s \sim N(0,t-s)^{\otimes d}, \quad N(0,t)(dx) = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi t}} \exp \left( -\frac{x^2}{2t} \right)dx \\ \text{(B4)} \quad t \mapsto B_t(\omega) \quad \text{ is continuous for all $\omega$} $$
The author claims that if we have B0, B1, B2, and B4, we will automatically have B3 as a consequence of central limit theorem but I don't see how it's done. Clearly, my first intuition is to divide $[0,t]$ into many sub-intervals, but no matter how we divide, $B_t$ can not be expressed as a limit ($B_t = \lim_{n} \frac{1}{\sqrt n}(X_1+...+X_n)$) for some iid sequence $(X_n)$ to have central limit theorem in use.

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    For B1, did you want to say those increments are independent? – Jose Avilez Nov 13 '23 at 04:00
  • @JoseAvilez Yes, thanks for pointing out :), I just added it. – Jeffrey Jao Nov 13 '23 at 04:04
  • @ThomasKojar In the proof of Davide Giraudo, it was given that $X_t$ has $E X_t =0$, $EX^2_t = t$ and moreover $E|X^3_t| \leq C$, here we don't have them. In the blog by George Lowther, as far as I understand, he didn't use CLT, which is what I'm looking for in a proof. – Jeffrey Jao Nov 13 '23 at 15:47
  • @ThomasKojar In the second answer, I haven't got time to investigate it thoroughly, however, I believe the OP still uses the $EX_t =0$ and $EX^2_t = t$, which are again not given here (btw, thanks for the links :) ). In fact, what I feel about the author is that he's very rigorous and careful, he always comments on confusing points or gives hints for verification. But here, he didn't say anything else, which makes me think it's not too difficult a problem... – Jeffrey Jao Nov 13 '23 at 16:13

1 Answers1

1

As mentioned here Application of central limit theorem for triangular arrays, the proof is found in K.Itô: Lectures on stochastic processes; p. 136ff. Another possible proof using stochastic calculus includes Continuous Processes with Independent Increments. And ideas from here A simple characterization of the Brownian Motion. We recreate the proof here.

1.By uniform continuity of the process (continuity on compact implies uniform continuity by Heine-Cantor and so we can pick uniform $\delta$ for each epsilon) we have for each $\epsilon>0$

$$P[\sup_{|t-s|\leq \delta(\epsilon),t,s\in [t_{0},t_{1}]}|X_{t}-X_{s}|< \epsilon]\geq 1-\epsilon.$$

2.Fix sequence $\epsilon_{n}\to 0$ and a corresponding partition for the interval $[t_{0},t_{1}]$

$$t_{0}=t^{n}_{i}<...<t_{p_{n}}^{n}=t_{1}\text{ and }t_{i+1}^{n}-t_{i}^{n}<\delta(\epsilon_{n})$$

for some $p_{n}\to +\infty$. We set

$$X^{n}_{k}:=(X^{n}_{t_{k}^{n}}-X^{n}_{t_{k-1}^{n}})1_{|X^{n}_{t_{k}^{n}}-X^{n}_{t_{k-1}^{n}}|\leq \epsilon_{n}}$$

and

$$S_{n}=\sum_{k=1}^{p_{n}}X^{n}_{k}.$$

3.We have

$$P[X_{t_{1}}-X_{t_{0}}=S_{n}]\geq P[\sup_{k=1,..,p_{n}}|X^{n}_{t_{k}^{n}}-X^{n}_{t_{k-1}^{n}}|< \epsilon_{n}]\geq P[\sup_{|t-s|\leq \delta(\epsilon_{n})}|X_{t}-X_{s}|< \epsilon_{n}]\geq 1-\epsilon_{n}.$$

And so $S_{n}\to X=X_{t_{1}}-X_{t_{0}}$ in probability. It remains to show that

$$E[e^{i\alpha S_{n}}]\to e^{im\alpha-\frac{V}{2}\alpha^{2}},$$

for some $m,V$ parameters. Consider the following

$$m^{n}_{k}=E[X^{n}_{k}],V^{n}_{k}=V[X^{n}_{k}],m_{n}:=\sum_{k=1}^{p_{n}}m^{n}_{k},V_{n}:=\sum_{k=1}^{p_{n}}V^{n}_{k}.$$

4.By independence of the increments and by Taylor-expansion we have

$$E[e^{i\alpha S_{n}}]=e^{i\alpha m_{n}}\prod_{k=1}^{p_{n}}E[e^{i\alpha( X_{k}^{n}-m_{k}^{n})}]=e^{i\alpha m_{n}}\prod_{k=1}^{p_{n}}\left(1-\frac{\alpha^{2}}{2}V^{n}_{k}(1+O(\epsilon_{n}) \right),$$

where we also used that we defined the sequence to satisfy $|X_{k}^{n}|\leq \epsilon_{n}$.

5.Showing that $V_{n}$ converges to some $V$.

Since we have convergence in probability we have by Convergence in probability implies convergence of characteristic functions

$$|E[e^{i\alpha ( X_{t_{1}}-X_{t_{0}})}]|=\lim_{n\to+\infty}|E[e^{i\alpha S_{n}}]|\leq \liminf_{n\to+\infty}\prod_{k=1}^{p_{n}}e^{-\frac{\alpha^{2}}{4}V^{n}_{k}}=\liminf_{n\to+\infty}e^{-\frac{\alpha^{2}}{4}V_{n}},$$ where we also used the inequality

$$1-\theta\leq e^{-\theta/2},$$

for small enough $\theta>0$, which is indeed the case here since $V_{k}^{n}\leq \epsilon_{n}^{2}$. As mentioned here Showing $\varphi(t)\neq 0$ when $\varphi$ is a characteristic function of an infinitely divisible distribution, the LHS is nonzero $|E[e^{i\alpha ( X_{t_{1}}-X_{t_{0}})}]|\neq 0$. Therefore, $V_{n}$ is a bounded monotone sequence and so there exists a convergence subsequence to some point value $V\geq 0$ (if zero then we get the degenerate Gaussian as mentioned).

Coming back to the computation we get

$$\prod_{k=1}^{p_{n}}\left(1-\frac{\alpha^{2}}{2}V^{n}_{k}(1+O(\epsilon_{n}) \right)\to e^{-\frac{\alpha^{2}}{2}V}.$$

6.Showing that $m_{n}$ converges to some $m$. Suppose that $|m_{n}|$ is unbounded. Then for every small $\beta>0$ we have for $\phi(\alpha):=e^{\frac{\alpha^{2}}{2}V}E[e^{i\alpha X}]$

$$\left|\int_{0}^{\beta}\phi(\alpha)d\alpha\right|=\lim_{n\to +\infty}\left|\int_{0}^{\beta} e^{i\alpha m_{n}}d\alpha\right|\leq \lim_{n\to +\infty}\left|\frac{e^{i\beta m_{n}}-1}{im_{n}}\right|\leq \lim_{n\to +\infty}\frac{2}{|m_{n}|}=0.$$

This again contradicts that the chf for an infinitely divisible processes is non-zero.

Therefore, by Bolzano-Weierstrass the bounded sequence $|m_{n}|$ has convergent subsequence to some limit $r$ and so by possibly picking a further subsequence we get $m_{n_{k}}\to m$ for some $m$ with $|m|=r$.

7.Conclusion. We showed that

$$E[e^{i\alpha S_{n}}]\to e^{im\alpha} e^{-\frac{\alpha^{2}}{2}V}.$$

Thomas Kojar
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  • I'm sorry but I don't see how 1. is true without fixing an interval beforehand. Ofc, its sample paths are continuous and therefore uniform continuous on compacts. With your reasoning, being continuous implies being uniform continuous, which is definitely wrong. – Jeffrey Jao Nov 13 '23 at 22:55
  • @JeffreyJao I just forgot to add the interval $[t_{0},t_{1}]$. Thanks. – Thomas Kojar Nov 13 '23 at 23:16
  • In 3. I think the first equality should be $\geq$ (since the second implies the first) the rest of 3. is okay here (but in fact, in your construction, $S_n$ converges pointwise so probably it shortens 1+2). In 5., I have never seen such a complex version of Fatou lemma before could you elaborate why we have that inequality from Fatou step by step? – Jeffrey Jao Nov 13 '23 at 23:24
  • @JeffreyJao Yes and Replaced the Fatou lemma step. Thanks. – Thomas Kojar Nov 13 '23 at 23:32
  • I mean not the step you just added (I'm aware of basic theorems), I dont see why you wrote $\lim | E(e^{i\alpha S_n})| \leq \liminf...$, where do the terms after $\liminf$ come from? I know you somehow use $E(e^{i\alpha S_n}) = e^{i\alpha m_n} \Pi (...)$ but I dont get the steps – Jeffrey Jao Nov 13 '23 at 23:54
  • @JeffreyJao i added the inequality. – Thomas Kojar Nov 14 '23 at 00:23