A stochastic maximum principle via Malliavin calculus

This paper considers a controlled It\^o-L\'evy process where the information available to the controller is possibly less than the overall information. All the system coefficients and the objective performance functional are allowed to be random, possibly non-Markovian. Malliavin calculus is employed to derive a maximum principle for the optimal control of such a system where the adjoint process is explicitly expressed

Maximum Principle for General Controlled Systems Driven by Fractional Brownian Motions

We obtain a maximum principle for stochastic control problem of general controlled stochastic differential systems driven by fractional Brownian motions (of Hurst parameter $H>1/2$). This maximum principle specifies a system of equations that the optimal control must satisfy (necessary condition for the optimal control). This system of equations consists of a backward stochastic differential equation driven by both fractional Brownian motion and the corresponding underlying standard Brownian motion. In addition to this backward equation, the maximum principle also involves the Malliavin derivatives. Our approach is to use conditioning and Malliavin calculus. To arrive at our maximum principle we need to develop some new results of stochastic analysis of the controlled systems driven by fractional Brownian motions via fractional calculus. Our approach of conditioning and Malliavin calculus is also applied to classical system driven by standard Brownian motion while the controller has only partial information. As a straightforward consequence, the classical maximum principle is also deduced in this more natural and simpler way.Comment: 44 page

Maximum Principle for Quasi-linear Backward Stochastic Partial Differential Equations

In this paper we are concerned with the maximum principle for quasi-linear backward stochastic partial differential equations (BSPDEs for short) of parabolic type. We first prove the existence and uniqueness of the weak solution to quasi-linear BSPDE with the null Dirichlet condition on the lateral boundary. Then using the De Giorgi iteration scheme, we establish the maximum estimates and the global maximum principle for quasi-linear BSPDEs. To study the local regularity of weak solutions, we also prove a local maximum principle for the backward stochastic parabolic De Giorgi class