[Math] Existence of a localizing sequence of stopping times for a continuous local martingale

martingalesprobability theorystochastic-processes

I have a a question about continuous local martingales:

the definition of continuous local martingale says that a continuous process $X_s$ is continuous local martingale if there is non decreasing sequence of stopping times $t_n$ such that
$X_{s \wedge t_n}$ is martingale ($X\in \mu^{c,loc}$)
I see in my book a claim that for $X \in \mu^{c,loc}$ there is non decreasing sequence of stopping times $t_n$ such that $X_{s \wedge t_n}$ is continuous martingale such that $E(X_{s \wedge t_n})^2 < \infty$ . i.e $X\in \mu_{2}^{c,loc}$

I don't find how to construct such sequence and I don't see why the claim is true.

thanks

Best Answer

For $n \in \mathbb{N}$ define a stopping time $\tau_n$ by $$\tau_n := \inf\{t>0; |X_t| \geq n\}.$$ Since $X$ has continuous sample paths, it holds that $|X_{t \wedge \tau_n}| \leq n$ for all $t \geq 0$. The sequence

$$t_n' := \min\{t_n, \tau_n\}$$

is a sequence of non-decreasing stopping times such that $(X_{t \wedge t_n'})_{t \geq 0}$ is a continuous martingale (by the optional stopping theorem) and $$\mathbb{E}|X_{t \wedge t_n'}|^2 \leq n^2< \infty.$$

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