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Soumik Pal

Publications and source records attributed to Soumik Pal.

69 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Convergence rates for rank-based models with applications to portfolio theory

We determine rates of convergence of rank-based interacting diffusions and semimartingale reflecting Brownian motions to equilibrium. Convergence rate for the total variation metric is derived using Lyapunov functions. Sharp fluctuations of additive functionals are obtained using Transportation Cost-Information inequalities for Markov processes. We work out various applications to the rank-based abstract equity markets used in Stochastic Portfolio Theory. For example, we produce quantitative bounds, including constants, for fluctuations of market weights and occupation times of various ranks for individual coordinates. Another important application is the comparison of performance between symmetric functionally generated portfolios and the market portfolio. This produces estimates of probabilities of "beating the market".

math.PR↗

Concentration for multidimensional diffusions and their boundary local times

We prove that probability laws of certain multidimensional semimartingales which includes time-inhomogenous diffusions, under suitable assumptions, satisfy Quadratic Transportation Cost Inequality under the uniform metric. From this we derive concentration properties of Lipschitz functions of process paths that depend on the entire history. In particular, we estimate concentration of boundary local time of reflected Brownian motions on a polyhedral domain. We work out explicit applications of consequences of measure concentration for the case of Brownian motion with rank-based drifts.

math.PR↗

On the Aldous diffusion on Continuum Trees. I

Consider a Markov chain on the space of rooted real binary trees that randomly removes leaves and reinserts them on a random edge and suitably rescales the lengths of edges. This chain was introduced by David Aldous who conjectured a diffusion limit of this chain, as the size of the tree grows, on the space of continuum trees. We prove the existence of a process on continuum trees, which via a random time change, displays properties one would expect from the conjectured Aldous diffusion. The existence of our process is proved by considering an explicit scaled limit of a Poissonized version of the Aldous Markov chain running on finite trees. The analysis involves taking limit of a sequence of splitting trees whose age processes converge but the contour process does not. Several formulas about the limiting process are derived.

math.PR↗

Crowding of Brownian spheres

We study two models consisting of reflecting one-dimensional Brownian "particles" of positive radius. We show that the stationary empirical distributions for the particle systems do not converge to the harmonic function for the generator of the individual particle process, unlike in the case when the particles are infinitely small.

math.PR↗

Concentration of measure for systems of Brownian particles interacting through their ranks

We consider a finite or countable collection of one-dimensional Brownian particles whose dynamics at any point in time is determined by their rank in the entire particle system. Using Transportation Cost Inequalities for stochastic processes we provide uniform fluctuation bounds for the ordered particles, their local time of collisions, and various associated statistics over intervals of time. For example, such processes, when exponentiated and rescaled, exhibit power law decay under stationarity; we derive concentration bounds for the empirical estimates of the index of the power law over large intervals of time. A key ingredient in our proofs is a novel upper bound on the Lipschitz constant of the Skorokhod map that transforms a multidimensional Brownian path to a path which is constrained not to leave the positive orthant.

math.PR↗

An Excursion-Theoretic Approach to Stability of Discrete-Time Stochastic Hybrid Systems

We address stability of a class of Markovian discrete-time stochastic hybrid systems. This class of systems is characterized by the state-space of the system being partitioned into a safe or target set and its exterior, and the dynamics of the system being different in each domain. We give conditions for $L_1$-boundedness of Lyapunov functions based on certain negative drift conditions outside the target set, together with some more minor assumptions. We then apply our results to a wide class of randomly switched systems (or iterated function systems), for which we give conditions for global asymptotic stability almost surely and in $L_1$. The systems need not be time-homogeneous, and our results apply to certain systems for which functional-analytic or martingale-based estimates are difficult or impossible to get.

math.OC↗

Analysis of continuous strict local martingales via h-transforms

We study strict local martingales via h-transforms, a method which first appeared in Delbaen-Schachermayer. We show that strict local martingales arise whenever there is a consistent family of change of measures where the two measures are not equivalent to one another. Several old and new strict local martingales are identified. We treat examples of diffusions with various boundary behavior, size-bias sampling of diffusion paths, and non-colliding diffusions. A multidimensional generalization to conformal strict local martingales is achieved through Kelvin transform. As curious examples of non-standard behavior, we show by various examples that strict local martingales do not behave uniformly when the function (x-K)^+ is applied to them. Implications to the recent literature on financial bubbles are discussed.

math.PR↗

A phase transition behavior for Brownian motions interacting through their ranks

Consider a time-varying collection of n points on the positive real axis, modeled as exponentials of n Brownian motions whose drift vector at every time point is determined by the relative ranks of the coordinate processes at that time. If at each time point we divide the points by their sum, under suitable assumptions the rescaled point process converges to a stationary distribution (depending on n and the vector of drifts) as time goes to infinity. This stationary distribution can be exactly computed using a recent result of Pal and Pitman. The model and the rescaled point process are both central objects of study in models of equity markets introduced by Banner, Fernholz, and Karatzas. In this paper, we look at the behavior of this point process under the stationary measure as $n$ tends to infinity. Under a certain `continuity at the edge' condition on the drifts, we show that one of the following must happen: either (i) all points converge to zero, or (ii) the maximum goes to one and the rest go to zero, or (iii) the processes converge in law to a non-trivial Poisson-Dirichlet distribution. The proof employs, among other things, techniques from Talagrand's analysis of the low temperature phase of Derrida's Random Energy Model of spin glasses. The main result establishes a universality property for the BFK models and aids in explicit asymptotic computations using known results about the Poisson-Dirichlet law.

math.PR↗

A combinatorial analysis of interacting diffusions

We consider a particular class of n-dimensional homogeneous diffusions all of which have an identity diffusion matrix and a drift function that is piecewise constant and scale invariant. Abstract stochastic calculus immediately gives us general results about existence and uniqueness in law and invariant probability distributions when they exist. These invariant distributions are probability measures on the $n$-dimensional space and can be extremely resistant to a more detailed understanding. To have a better analysis, we construct a polyhedra such that the inward normal at its surface is given by the drift function and show that the finer structures of the invariant probability measure is intertwined with the geometry of the polyhedra. We show that several natural interacting Brownian particle models can thus be analyzed by studying the combinatorial fan generated by the drift function, particularly when these are simplicial. This is the case when the polyhedra is a polytope that is invariant under a Coxeter group action, which leads to an explicit description of the invariant measures in terms of iid Exponential random variables. Another class of examples is furnished by interactions indexed by weighted graphs all of which generate simplicial polytopes with $n !$ faces. We show that the proportion of volume contained in each component simplex corresponds to a probability distribution on the group of permutations, some of which have surprising connections with the classical urn models.

math.PR↗

One-dimensional Brownian particle systems with rank dependent drifts

We study interacting systems of linear Brownian motions whose drift vector at every time point is determined by the relative ranks of the coordinate processes at that time. Our main objective has been to study the long range behavior of the spacings between the Brownian motions arranged in increasing order. For finitely many Brownian motions interacting in this manner, we characterize drifts for which the family of laws of the vector of spacings is tight, and show its convergence to a unique stationary joint distribution given by independent exponential distributions with varying means. We also study one particular countably infinite system, where only the minimum Brownian particle gets a constant upward drift, and prove that independent and identically distributed exponential spacings remain stationary under the dynamics of such a process. Some related conjectures in this direction have also been discussed.

math.PR↗

Computing strategies for achieving acceptability

We consider a trader who wants to direct his portfolio towards a set of acceptable wealths given by a convex risk measure. We propose a black-box algorithm, whose inputs are the joint law of stock prices and the convex risk measure, and whose outputs are the numerical values of initial capital requirement and the functional form of a trading strategy to achieve acceptability. We also prove optimality of the obtained capital.

math.PR↗

Symmetrization of Bernoulli

Let X be a random variable. We shall call an independent random variable Y to be a symmetrizer for X, if X+Y is symmetric around zero. A random variable is said to be symmetry resistant if the variance of any symmetrizer Y, is never smaller than the variance of X itself. We prove that a Bernoulli(p) random variable is symmetry resistant if and only if p is not 1/2. This is an old problem proved in 1999 by Kagan, Mallows, Shepp, Vanderbei & Vardi using linear programming principles. We reprove it here using completely probabilistic tools using Skorokhod embedding and Ito's rule.

math.PR↗

Capital Requirement for Achieving Acceptability

Consider an agent who enters a financial market on day t = 0 with an initial capital amount x. He invests this amount on stocks and the money market, and by day t = T, has generated a wealth W . He is given a convex class of probability measures (called scenarios) and a real-valued function (or floors) corresponding to each scenario. The agent faces the constraints that the expectation of W under each scenario must not be less than the corresponding floor. We call x acceptable if one can start with x and successfully generate W satisfying these constraints. The set of acceptable x is a half-line in R, unbounded from above. We show that under some regularity conditions on the set of scenarios and the floor function, the infimum of this set is given by the supremum of the floors over all scenarios under which S is a martingale.

math.PR↗