Continuity Form Above for Measurable Sequence of Sets
The aim of this post is to give a direct proof of the theorems of measurable projection and measurable section. These are generally regarded as rather difficult results, and proofs often use ideas from descriptive set theory such as analytic sets. I did previously post a proof along those lines on this blog. However, the results can be obtained in a more direct way, which is the purpose of this post. Here, I present relatively self-contained proofs which do not require knowledge of any advanced topics beyond basic probability theory.
The projection theorem states that if is a complete probability space, then the projection of a measurable subset of
onto
is measurable. To be precise, the condition is that S is in the product sigma-algebra
, where
denotes the Borel sets in
, and the projection map is denoted
Then, measurable projection states that . Although it looks like a very basic property of measurable sets, maybe even obvious, measurable projection is a surprisingly difficult result to prove. In fact, the requirement that the probability space is complete is necessary and, if it is dropped, then
need not be measurable. Counterexamples exist for commonly used measurable spaces such as
and
. This suggests that there is something deeper going on here than basic manipulations of measurable sets.
By definition, if then, for every
, there exists a
such that
. The measurable section theorem — also known as measurable selection — says that this choice can be made in a measurable way. That is, if S is in
then there is a measurable section,
It is convenient to extend to the whole of
by setting
outside of
.
The graph of is
The condition that whenever
can alternatively be expressed by stating that
. This also ensures that
is a subset of
, and
is a section of S on the whole of
if and only if
.
The results described here can also be used to prove the optional and predictable section theorems which, at first appearances, also seem to be quite basic statements. The section theorems are fundamental to the powerful and interesting theory of optional and predictable projection which is, consequently, generally considered to be a hard part of stochastic calculus. In fact, the projection and section theorems are really not that hard to prove.
Let us consider how one might try and approach a proof of the projection theorem. As with many statements regarding measurable sets, we could try and prove the result first for certain simple sets, and then generalise to measurable sets by use of the monotone class theorem or similar. For example, let denote the collection of all
for which
. It is straightforward to show that any finite union of sets of the form
for
and
are in
. If it could be shown that
is closed under taking limits of increasing and decreasing sequences of sets, then the result would follow from the monotone class theorem. Increasing sequences are easily handled — if
is a sequence of subsets of
then from the definition of the projection map,
If for each n, this shows that the union
is again in
. Unfortunately, decreasing sequences are much more problematic. If
for all
then we would like to use something like
| | (1) |
However, this identity does not hold in general. For example, consider the decreasing sequence . Then,
for all n, but
is empty, contradicting (1). There is some interesting history involved here. In a paper published in 1905, Henri Lebesgue claimed that the projection of a Borel subset of
onto
is itself measurable. This was based upon mistakenly applying (1). The error was spotted in around 1917 by Mikhail Suslin, who realised that the projection need not be Borel, and lead him to develop the theory of analytic sets.
Actually, there is at least one situation where (1) can be shown to hold. Suppose that for each , the slices
| | (2) |
are compact. For each , the slices
give a decreasing sequence of nonempty compact sets, so has nonempty intersection. So, letting S be the intersection
, the slice
is nonempty. Hence,
, and (1) follows.
The starting point for our proof of the projection and section theorems is to consider certain special subsets of where the compactness argument, as just described, can be used. The notation
is used to represent the collection of countable intersections,
, of sets
in
.
Lemma 1 Let
be a measurable space, and
be the collection of subsets of
which are finite unions
over compact intervals
and
. Then, for any
, we have
, and the debut
![]()
is a measurable map with
and
.
Proof: Noting that and the collection of compact intervals in
are closed under pairwise intersection, the same is true for
. Then, for
there exists, by definition,
such that
. Replacing
by
if necessary, we may suppose that
is a decreasing sequence.
Now, the slices defined by (2) are finite unions of compact intervals, so are compact. The compactness argument explained above implies that
| | (3) |
As each is a finite union
for
and nonempty
, the projection
is in
. Then, (3) shows that
is also in
.
If is the debut of S, then
. This immediately implies
and, as nonempty compact sets contain their infimum,
. For every
, the set
is in
and,
showing that is measurable. ⬜
When dealing with more general subsets of , it will not necessarily be the case that the projection onto
is measurable. For that reason, we extend the probability measure to more general subsets of
. For a probability space
, define an outer measure on the power set
by approximating
from above by measurable sets,
| | (4) |
The outer measure has the following basic properties.
Lemma 2 For a probability space
, the outer measure
is increasing and continuous along increasing sequences. That is,
for
, and
for sequences
increasing to a limit A.
Furthermore, for any
, there exists
in
with
.
Proof: The fact that is increasing is immediate from the definition. Now, let
be increasing to the limit A. By the definition of
, there exists
in
with
Replacing by
if necessary, we may suppose that
is an increasing sequence. Then,
is in
and, by monotone convergence,
So, as required. Incidentally, this also shows that there is a
in
with
. ⬜
I now move on the the main component of the proof of the projection and section theorems. This will allow us to approximate measurable subsets of from below by sets in
, as defined in lemma 1 above. While the statement of theorem 3 is simple enough, the proof can get a bit tricky. The method used here is elementary and, although the argument is a bit intricate, no advanced mathematics is required. The definition of
means that it is the minimal collection of subsets of X which contains
and is closed under taking limits of increasing and decreasing sequences. I refer to the result as the `capacitability theorem' as it is a version of Choquet's capacitability theorem although, here, we do not involve the concept of analytic sets. A set
can be called capacitable if, for each
, there exists a decreasing sequence
with
and
. So, theorem 3 is saying that all sets in
are capacitable.
Theorem 3 (Capacitability Theorem) Let X be a set,
be closed under pairwise intersections, and
be increasing and continuous along increasing sequences. Denote the closure of
under limits of increasing and of decreasing sequences by
.
Then, for any
and
with
, there exists a decreasing sequence
with
and
for all n.
Proof: Fixing , let
denote the collection of all
with
. The assumptions on I mean that for any
then every
is in
and, for any sequence
increasing to A, then
for large n.
The proof of the theorem amounts to finding a collection containing
and closed under taking limits of increasing and decreasing sequences, such that, for every
, we can construct a decreasing sequence
with
. In that case, every
will also be in
, and the claimed result will follow.
The main difficulty in the proof is to describe a collection with the required properties. One way of doing this is as follows, and can be described in terms of a game. For
, consider the following infinite game played between two players, who take turns choosing sets from
. Starting with
, at rounds
, the players make the following moves.
- Player 1 chooses an
in
.
- Player 2 chooses a
in
.
At each round, both players can, at least, make a valid move. For example, player 1 can set and player 2 can set
. We say that player 2 wins the game if, once completed, she is able to find a sequence
in
with
.
For any , denote the game described above by
. A strategy (for player 2) is just a sequence of functions
satisfying
| | (5) |
The idea is that represents player 2's choice for
at round n, given that player 1 has chosen
so far. It is a winning strategy if, for any sequence
satisfying
| | (6) |
for each , then there exists a sequence
with
| | (7) |
We note that, combining (5) and (6) shows that must be a decreasing sequence of subsets of A.
Now, let be the collection of
for which the game
has a winning strategy. The case with
is easy. Any strategy is a winning strategy simply by taking
in (7). For
we may as well take
, which is a valid strategy.
Now, consider a sequence and let
be winning strategies for
. Construct a winning strategy for
, with
, as follows. Choose a bijection
such that
is increasing in s. For example, take
. Then for
and
, define
It can be seen that this is a winning strategy. If (6) is satisfied then, writing , we use the fact that the sequence
is decreasing and
to write
for any . So, (6) is also satisfied for the sequence
(for the strategy
and game
). As
is a winning strategy for
, there exists
in
satisfying
. In particular, writing
gives
so (7) is satisfied, and .
If is increasing, construct a winning strategy for
as follows. For any
with
, the sequence
increases to
. Hence, there is a minimum r such that
. Set,
For then we do not really care, so can just take
. This clearly gives a valid strategy. To see that it is a winning strategy, suppose that (6) is satisfied. Setting
and
for
, we see that (6) is also satisfied with
in place of
and
in place of
. So, as
is a winning strategy for the game
, there exists a sequence
with
So, is a winning strategy for
and, hence,
.
We have shown that contains
and is closed under taking limits of increasing and decreasing sequences and, so, contains
. Finally, for any
, let
be a winning strategy for
and define a sequence
by
and
for all . As
is a winning strategy, there exists a sequence
satisfying (7). Replacing
by
if required, we can suppose that the sequence is decreasing. Finally, as
, we have
as required. ⬜
The argument above is along similar lines to the `rabotages de Sierpinski' used by Dellacherie, Ensembles aléatoires II (1969). Although the description of the collection in terms of winning strategies of the games
may not seem like an obvious approach, it is really quite natural. As a first attempt to prove the result, we could try defining
to be the collection of sets for which the conclusion of the theorem holds. That is, the sets A for which there is a decreasing sequence
with
. We would then have to show that
is closed under taking limits of increasing and decreasing sequences. While increasing sequences are easy to deal with, decreasing ones are problematic. Suppose that
decreases to A and that, for each n, there is a decreasing sequence
with
. To construct a sequence of sets
we could try to do the following. Reorder the doubly-indexed sequence
into a singly-indexed one,
and set
. Then, it is clear that
and
. However,
is not decreasing. We could try and ensure that it is decreasing by setting
Unfortunately, it is no longer necessarily true that is in
. When we take intersections
we need no longer be in
. The easiest way around this, it seems, is to allow the choice of
to depend on the previous choices of
. That is, the choice of
should depend on
so as to enforce the condition that
is in
. This leads, essentially, to the requirement of winning strategies for the games
as described in the proof of theorem 3.
We use theorem 3 to show that measurable subsets of can be approximated from below by
.
Corollary 4 Let
be a probability space and
be the collection of subsets of
given in lemma 1. Then, for any
and
, there exists
in
satisfying
![]()
Proof: Setting , define
This is clearly increasing. Also, if is increasing to a limit A then
increases to
. Lemma 2 implies that
, and I is continuous along increasing sequences.
As the complement of a compact interval in is a countable union of compact intervals, the complement of any
is a countable union of
. The monotone class theorem then says that the closure of
under limits of increasing and decreasing sequences is the entire sigma-algebra generated by
. Hence,
We apply theorem 3. For and
, setting
, there exists a decreasing sequence
with
and
. Take
which is in
. As in the proof of lemma 1,
decreases to
. By monotone convergence,
as required. ⬜
Combining this result with the statement, in lemma 1, of measurable projection for sets in gives the measurable projection theorem.
Theorem 5 (Measurable Projection) Let
be a complete probability space, and
. Then,
.
Proof: By corollary 4, for each positive integer n, there is an in
with
| | (8) |
We know from lemma 1 that are measurable, so
is in
, is contained in
, and satisfies
. Lemma 2 states that there is a
in
and satisfying
.
We have constructed sets in
and satisfying
. By definition, this means that
is in the completion of
and, if the probability space is complete, it is in
. ⬜
In a similar way, corollary 4 combined with the statement of measurable section for sets in , given by lemma 1, gives the measurable section theorem.
Theorem 6 (Measurable Section) Let
be a probability space and
. Then, there exists a measurable
, such that
and
is
-null.
Proof: As in the proof of theorem 5, there is a sequence in
satisfying (8). Replacing
by
if necessary, we suppose that the sequence
is increasing. Let
be the debut of
, Lemma 1 states that this is measurable and
. Define a random time
by,
(I am using ). This is measurable with graph
contained in S and,
By lemma 2, there exists containing
with
. So,
has zero probability and contains
, which is
-null as required. ⬜
Finally, we state the theorem for complete probability spaces, in which case the section is defined on all of , and not just up to a
-null set.
Theorem 7 (Measurable Section) Let
be a complete probability space and
. Then, there exists a measurable
, such that
and
.
Proof: By theorem 6 there exists a measurable map such that
and
is
-null. Define
by
Here, represents the slice of S defined as in (2). We do not care about which t is chosen in the third case but, as
is nonempty on
, a choice does exist. By construction,
,
, and
almost surely. As
is measurable, completeness of the probability space implies that
is also measurable. ⬜
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Source: https://almostsuremath.com/2019/01/10/proof-of-the-measurable-projection-and-section-theorems/
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