Large deviations for some fast stochastic volatility models by viscosity methods

We consider the short time behaviour of stochastic systems affected by a stochastic volatility evolving at a faster time scale. We study the asymptotics of a logarithmic functional of the process by methods of the theory of homogenisation and singular perturbations for fully nonlinear PDEs. We point out three regimes depending on how fast the volatility oscillates relative to the horizon length. We prove a large deviation principle for each regime and apply it to the asymptotics of option prices near maturity

Optimal control of multiscale systems using reduced-order models

We study optimal control of diffusions with slow and fast variables and address a question raised by practitioners: is it possible to first eliminate the fast variables before solving the optimal control problem and then use the optimal control computed from the reduced-order model to control the original, high-dimensional system? The strategy "first reduce, then optimize"--rather than "first optimize, then reduce"--is motivated by the fact that solving optimal control problems for high-dimensional multiscale systems is numerically challenging and often computationally prohibitive. We state sufficient and necessary conditions, under which the "first reduce, then control" strategy can be employed and discuss when it should be avoided. We further give numerical examples that illustrate the "first reduce, then optmize" approach and discuss possible pitfalls

Small Noise Asymptotics for Invariant Densities for a Class of Diffusions: A Control Theoretic View (with Erratum)

The uniqueness argument in the proof of Theorem 5, p. 483, of "Small noise asymptotics for invariant densities for a class of diffusions: a control theoretic view, J. Math. Anal. and Appl. (2009) " is flawed. We give here a corrected proof.Comment: 23 pages; Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, 200

The instanton method and its numerical implementation in fluid mechanics

A precise characterization of structures occurring in turbulent fluid flows at high Reynolds numbers is one of the last open problems of classical physics. In this review we discuss recent developments related to the application of instanton methods to turbulence. Instantons are saddle point configurations of the underlying path integrals. They are equivalent to minimizers of the related Freidlin-Wentzell action and known to be able to characterize rare events in such systems. While there is an impressive body of work concerning their analytical description, this review focuses on the question on how to compute these minimizers numerically. In a short introduction we present the relevant mathematical and physical background before we discuss the stochastic Burgers equation in detail. We present algorithms to compute instantons numerically by an efficient solution of the corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations. A second focus is the discussion of a recently developed numerical filtering technique that allows to extract instantons from direct numerical simulations. In the following we present modifications of the algorithms to make them efficient when applied to two- or three-dimensional fluid dynamical problems. We illustrate these ideas using the two-dimensional Burgers equation and the three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations

On average control generating families for singularly perturbed optimal control problems with long run average optimality criteria

The paper aims at the development of tools for analysis and construction of near optimal solutions of singularly perturbed (SP) optimal controls problems with long run average optimality criteria. The idea that we exploit is to first asymptotically approximate a given problem of optimal control of the SP system by a certain averaged optimal control problem, then reformulate this averaged problem as an infinite-dimensional (ID) linear programming (LP) problem, and then approximate the latter by semi-infinite LP problems. We show that the optimal solution of these semi-infinite LP problems and their duals (that can be found with the help of a modification of an available LP software) allow one to construct near optimal controls of the SP system. We demonstrate the construction with a numerical example.Comment: 36 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1309.373

Liouville properties and critical value of fully nonlinear elliptic operators

We prove some Liouville properties for sub- and supersolutions of fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations in the whole space. Our assumptions allow the coefficients of the first order terms to be large at infinity, provided they have an appropriate sign, as in Ornstein- Uhlenbeck operators. We give two applications. The first is a stabilization property for large times of solutions to fully nonlinear parabolic equations. The second is the solvability of an ergodic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation that identifies a unique critical value of the operator.Comment: 18 pp, to appear in J. Differential Equation