Levy processes - from probability theory to finance and quantum groups

Stochastic processes are families of random variables; Lévy processes are families indexed by the positive reals which are independent with stationary increments and are stochastically continuous. The author reviews the basic properties of Lévy processes and considers some of their applications

On generalized Gaussian free fields and stochastic homogenization

We study a generalization of the notion of Gaussian free field (GFF). Although the extension seems minor, we first show that a generalized GFF does not satisfy the spatial Markov property, unless it is a classical GFF. In stochastic homogenization, the scaling limit of the corrector is a possibly generalized GFF described in terms of an "effective fluctuation tensor" that we denote by $\mathsf{Q}$. We prove an expansion of $\mathsf{Q}$ in the regime of small ellipticity ratio. This expansion shows that the scaling limit of the corrector is not necessarily a classical GFF, and in particular does not necessarily satisfy the Markov property.Comment: 20 pages, revised versio

Nonparametric estimation of Levy processes with a view towards mathematical finance

Model selection methods and nonparametric estimation of Levy densities are presented. The estimation relies on the properties of Levy processes for small time spans, on the nature of the jumps of the process, and on methods of estimation for spatial Poisson processes. Given a linear space S of possible Levy densities, an asymptotically unbiased estimator for the orthogonal projection of the Levy density onto S is found. It is proved that the expected standard error of the proposed estimator realizes the smallest possible distance between the true Levy density and the linear space S as the frequency of the data increases and as the sampling time period gets longer. Also, we develop data-driven methods to select a model among a collection of models. The method is designed to approximately realize the best trade-off between the error of estimation within the model and the distance between the model and the unknown Levy density. As a result of this approach and of concentration inequalities for Poisson functionals, we obtain Oracles inequalities that guarantee us to reach the best expected error (using projection estimators) up to a constant. Numerical results are presented for the case of histogram estimators and variance Gamma processes. To calibrate parametric models,a nonparametric estimation method with least-squares errors is studied. Comparison with maximum likelihood estimation is provided. On a separate problem, we review the theoretical properties of temepered stable processes, a class of processes with potential great use in Mathematical Finance.Ph.D.Committee Chair: Christian Houdre; Committee Member: Marcus C. Spruill; Committee Member: Richard Serfozo; Committee Member: Robert P. Kertz; Committee Member: Shijie Den