Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Skorokhod's embedding theorem

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit

In mathematics and probability theory, Skorokhod's embedding theorem is either or both of two theorems that allow one to regard any suitable collection of random variables as a Wiener process (Brownian motion) evaluated at a collection of stopping times. Both results are named for the Ukrainian mathematician A.V. Skorokhod.

Contents

Skorokhod's first embedding theorem

Let X be a real-valued random variable with expected value 0 and finite variance; let W denote a canonical real-valued Wiener process. Then there is a stopping time (with respect to the natural filtration of W), τ, such that Wτ has the same distribution as X,

E [ τ ] = E [ X 2 ]

and

E [ τ 2 ] 4 E [ X 4 ] .

Skorokhod's second embedding theorem

Let X1, X2, ... be a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables, each with expected value 0 and finite variance, and let

S n = X 1 + + X n .

Then there is a sequence of stopping times τ1τ2 ≤ ... such that the W τ n have the same joint distributions as the partial sums Sn and τ1, τ2τ1, τ3τ2, ... are independent and identically distributed random variables satisfying

E [ τ n τ n 1 ] = E [ X 1 2 ]

and

E [ ( τ n τ n 1 ) 2 ] 4 E [ X 1 4 ] .

References

Skorokhod's embedding theorem Wikipedia