Lecture plan

This plan is tentative, it will be updated continuously.

Because of travelling, there will be more lectures some weeks and no lectures others.

BØ = Bernt Øksendal’s book

Week Topics Textbook and notes Comments
34 Introduction to the course.

Introduction to measure and integration
Sigma algebras, measures, measurable functions.



Note on Measure and Integration Theory by Krogstad.

See also Øksendal Chp 2 and Appendix B
35 More on mesurable functions, the Lebesgue integral.

Big theorems for the Lebesgue integral, Lp-spaces.

Review of probability theory
Probability space, random variables, distribution.

Note on Measure and Integration

See also Øksendal Appendix B






More details in the book by Jacod and Protter.
36 Moments, characteristic functions, multivariate Gaussian variables.

Independence, Borel-Cantelli lemmas.

Note on Measure and Integration

Øksendal Appendix A and B
\\See also Øksendal sec. 2.1
More details in the book by Jacod and Protter.
37 Conditional Expectation.

Stochastic processes
Definition, finite dimensional distributions
Brownian motion (BM)
definition, distributional properties.

Note on Measure and Integration \\ 
Note on Brownian motion

Øksendal chp. 2.2

Evans chp 2.I and 3
More details in the book by Jacod and Protter.
38 Invariance and sample path properties of BM, further remarks, motivation, Levy construction

Levy construction of BM - the proof.

Note on Brownian motion

Øksendal chp. 2.2

Evans chp 2.I and 3
More details in the books by Schilling & Partzsch and Evans.

39 Martingales
definition (discrete and continuous),
filtration, adapted processes,
examples, inequality, closedness in L2,
martingale transform.

Stochastic integrals
White noise and SDEs
Stieltjes integrals
Elementary functions and Ito isometry
The Itô integral in \(L^2\), definition.

Note on Brownian motion,

Øksendal p 31,

Note on Martingales and the Itô Integral


Øksendal chp. 3,

Note on Martingales and the Itô Integral
The proof of the Levy construction presented in class is based on the note of Krogstad, but we have filled in missing parts.

A nice and fairly complete proof can be found in the book by Schilling.
40 Properties, examples, martingale, continuity a.s., generalizations.

Itô processes
Itô's formula with proof, mean square continuous processes.

Proof of Ito's formula.
Multi-dimensional versions
Øksendal chp. 3,

Note on Martingales and the Itô Integral

Øksendal chp. 4.1, 4.2

Note on Mean Square Continuous Processes and Proof of Ito's formula
Extra lecture this week (3 lectures).

Read yourselves:
A comparision of Ito and Stratonovich integrals, Øksendal p. 35-37

Read yourselves:
Øksendal chp. 4.3
(proofs not relevant for the exam)

41 Stochastic Differential Equations
Strong solutions. Example.
Stability and uniqueness of strong solutions.

Proof of uniqueness. Existence of strong solutions.

Øksendal chp. 5

Evans Lecture Note chp. 5.A (the definition), see also the books by Kuo and Schilling.

OBS: There seems to be a mistake in the proof of existence for SDEs in the 6th edition of Øksendal. The proof in previous editions is correct but longer.

We will use the shorter proof given in Schilling, see my handwritten notes:
Strong solution of SDEs. Uniqueness and Existence

Read yourselves:
Øksendal chp. 5.3
(discussion on weak solutions and uniqueness)
This part was discussed only orally in class.
42 Project work. Espen in Madrid.

No lectures.
43 Project work No lectures,
office hours during lecture times, see info page.

44 Solutions to some linear SDEs, integrating factor
Diffusion processes
Introduction, Markov processes, Itô Diffusions

Stopping times, Dynkin’s Formula,
the generator,
The Dirichlet problems for elliptic PDEs
Øksendal chp. 5.1 and 7.1-7.4

Note on Linear SDEs and Physical Brownian Motion

Note on Informal Comments on Itô Diffusions
Read yourselves:
Note on Linear SDEs and Physical Brownian Motion
45 Brownian motion in Rn,
hitting and exit times and probabilities,
Kolmogorov's backward equation
Øksendal chp. 7.4 and 8.1

Note on Fokker-Planck eqns. and Kolmogorov forward and backward eqns.
Read yourselves:
Proof of Theorem 8.1.1 b) in Øksendal
46 The Fokker-Planck or Kolmogorov's Forward Equations,
Øksendal problem 8:8.2
The Resolvent
Feynman-Kac Formula,
Itô diffusions and Martingales
Øksendal chp. 8.2-8.3

Note on Fokker-Planck eqns. and Kolmogorov forward and backward eqns.
2023-10-09, Espen Robstad Jakobsen