Intrinsic location parameter of a diffusion process

Abstract

For nonlinear functions f of a random vector Y, E[f(Y)] and f(E[Y]) usually differ. Consequently the mathematical expectation of Y is not intrinsic: when we change coordinate systems, it is not invariant.This article is about a fundamental and hitherto neglected property of random vectors of the form Y=f(X(t)), where X(t) is the value at time t of a diffusion process X: namely that there exists a measure of location, called the "intrinsic location parameter" (ILP), which coincides with mathematical expectation only in special cases, and which is invariant under change of coordinate systems. The construction uses martingales with respect to the intrinsic geometry of diffusion processes, and the heat flow of harmonic mappings. We compute formulas which could be useful to statisticians, engineers, and others who use diffusion process models; these have immediate application, discussed in a separate article, to the construction of an intrinsic nonlinear analog to the Kalman Filter. We present here a numerical simulation of a nonlinear SDE, showing how well the ILP formula tracks the mean of the SDE for a Euclidean geometry. © 2002 Applied Probability Trust.