[Math] Measurability of an a.e. pointwise limit of measurable functions.

almost-everywhereconvergence-divergencemeasure-theory

Suppose that $(f_n)_n$ is a sequence of measurable functions on a set $E$ and that $f_n \to f$ a.e.on $E$. Does this imply that $f$ is measurable?

I know that pointwise limit of measurable function is measurable. But here we only have convergence a.e. So I got confused.

Best Answer

That depends on the exact context.

In general, $f$ will not be measurable. To see this, simply take $(X, \{\emptyset, X\}, \mu)$ as your measure space, with $\mu(\emptyset) = 0 = \mu(X)$.

Then $f_n \to f$ almost everywhere holds for every sequence $(f_n)_n$ and every map $f$, but only constant maps are measurable.


Now assume that your measure space $(X, \Sigma, \mu)$ is complete. This means that if $A \in \Sigma$ with $B \subset A$ and $\mu(A) = 0$, then also $B \in \Sigma$.

Then $f$ is measurable. To see this, first note that if $f = g$ almost everywhere (i.e. on $N^c$ with $\mu(N) = 0$) and $g$ is measurable, then so is $f$, because for every interval $I \subset \Bbb{R}$, we have

\begin{eqnarray*} f^{-1}(I) &=& [f^{-1}(I) \cap N^c] \cup [f^{-1}(I) \cap N] \\ &=& [g^{-1}(I) \cap N^c] \cup [f^{-1}(I) \cap N]. \end{eqnarray*}

But $N,N^c$ are measurable and $g$ is measurable. Hence, $g^{-1}(I) \cap N^c$ is measurable.

Finally, since your measure space is complete, $f^{-1}(I) \cap N$ is measurable (because it is a subset of the null-set $N$).

Hence, $f^{-1}(I)$ is measurable.

Now let $g := \liminf_n f_n$. Then $g$ is measurable and $f = g$ almost everywhere because of $f_n \to f$ almost everywhere. By the above, this implies that $f$ is measurable.


Finally note that the Lebesgue measure equipped with the $\sigma$-algebra of Lebesgue measurable sets is complete, but equipped with the $\sigma$-algebra of Borel measurable sets, it is not complete.

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