Abstract
New Monte Carlo algorithms for solving the Cauchy problem for the second order parabolic equation with smooth coefficients are considered. Unbiased estimators for the solutions of this problem are constructed.
1. Introduction
Consider the parabolic operator
Let all coefficients of the operator L be defined in the domain Denote by the coefficient matrix of the highest derivatives of the operator L and suppose that is symmetric matrix. Suppose that all eigenvalues of the matrix belong to the fixed interval where .
Consider the Cauchy problem in the domain
A Random variable is called an unbiased estimator for a function if mathematical expectation is equal to Every unbiased estimator gives a stochastic numerical method for evaluation of the function . Now we briefly discuss some known stochastic methods for solving the Cauchy problem.
Let and the coefficients of the parabolic operator are elements of the Hölder class then Equation (2) has a fundamental solution [1]. Let the function satisfy the Hölder condition with respect to all of its arguments, and let the function be continuous function. Let in addition and grow no faster than as Then, the solution of the Cauchy problem can be written in the following form
If then the fundamental solution is a probability density (as a function of y). So, if the fundamental solution is known one can construct the corresponding unbiased estimator. Particularly, if the coefficients of the equation are constant, it is enought to generate a normally distributed random vector in for the evaluation of In the general case, is a transition density of a stochastic process , which started from a point x at time Hence,
and random variable is an unbiased estimator for where the variable is uniformly distributed in Then we can use this estimator in the Monte Carlo procedure if we can generate the process . The process is a solution of the respective stochastic differential equation, and we can approximate it by another process , using, for example, the Euler scheme. Let and be the Euler approximation for the corresponding values of After replacing X by Y, the estimator became the biased one. Let and be the densities of —dimentional distributions for the X and Y processes, respectively. The estimator is an unbiased estimator for Finally, if random variable is an unbiased estimator for then
The first factor in the formula (5) was constructed by W. Wagner in his papers [2]. It was shown that the fundamental solution is a functional of the solution of some integral Volterra equation. The von-Neumann–Ulam scheme [3] was applied for estimation of the fundamental solution. Monte Carlo algorithms for evaluation of some other functionals can be found in the works [4,5,6].
In paper [7], the von-Neumann–Ulam scheme was used for constructing another class of estimators for without using a grid. A conjugate (dual) scheme of construction of unbiased estimators for functionals of the solutions of an integral equation, which is equivalent to the Cauchy problem, was considered in [8]. This scheme simplifies the modeling procedure, because boundaries of the spectrum for the matrix are not required to be known.
Finally, if the operator L has differentiable coefficients, then we can obtain an integral equation for by using the Green formula and solve this equation via the Monte Carlo method. Such algorithms were considered in [9,10] for equations whose principal part one is the Laplace operator. We obtain a Volterra equation for the Cauchy problem solution in the general case. In this paper we investigate the von-Neumann–Ulam scheme for regular and conjugate cases.
It is necessary to note that the Multilevel Monte Carlo Method [11,12] is often used for evaluation of the functional , where process is a solution of the respective stochastic differential equation. This approach is not covered in this paper.
This paper does not contain any results of numerical experiments. Numerical experiments and the efficiency of various stochastic algorithms for solving the Cauchy problem will be the subject of the separate paper.
2. Integral Representation
Let all coefficients of the operator L be elements of the Hölder class and let there exist continuous and bounded derivatives
for
We also suppose that the Cauchy problem solution is continuous and bounded. We define by equality
Take a point . Let be the elements of the inverse matrix . Let us define a function by equality
Define the function for by equality
For we set . We denote by if the point is fixed.
For we define a function by equality
Using a Green formula, it is easy to prove that
where the inner integral in the third term is a surface integral on the boundary of the domain , which is defined by Let M be a conjugate operator for
Using the Cauchy inequality we have
Define a new scalar product by equality Then
Using the Cauchy inequality we have
Hence,
Now, we can evaluate the last integral in formula (8):
Hence, the last integral in formula (8) converges to zero as . For the function v we have inequality Moreover, as So, using the equality
we have
and
It is easy to see that
where
is a coefficient of the function u in the operator The inequalities
show that
Putting in the formula (8), we have the following integral representation of the Cauchy problem (2)
3. Von-Neumann–Ulam Scheme
Now we investigate some properties of the integral operator
in Equation (10). The matrix of the coefficients of higher derivatives is symmetric. So, from the equation
we have
where are bounded.
The expression (12) has the same structure and properties as the kernel in formula (11.12) in ([1], Sec. IV). It follows from inequalities (11.3) and (11.17) in ([1], Sec. IV) that there exist positive constants C and c, such that
for .
Examples of constants c, C and further discussion can be found in [7]. In particular, it is shown in [7] that the inequality (13) implies uniform convergence of the von-Neumann series for Equation (10), if and are bounded functions. We have
We can apply methods of [7] for constructing unbiased estimators for To realize the von-Neumann–Ulam scheme, it is sufficient to choose a transition probability density for a Markov chain consistent with the kernel of the operator K. For instance, we can take a density in the form
where is the probability of absorption at a current step and
for and for .
The constant C in these formulas is the same as in inequality (13). We can take any constant such that Hence, we have the compatibility of the density and the kernel of the integral equation. The probability of absorption at each step is a constant. Therefore, the time of the absorption (N) has a geometric probability distribution with a parameter q: for Random variable N and the trajectory are independent random elements and . We can use procedure described in [7] for generating a Markov chain which starts at the point .
We define weight functions as ,
for . Final unbiased estimators for are obtained after replacement of by their unbiased estimators
where the random variable is uniformly distributed on the interval , and a random vector Y has a normal distribution with mean 0 and covariance matrix . They are independent.
It is proved in [7] that the estimators have finite variances.
Numerical Algorithm
The numerical algorithm is based on the Monte Carlo method for calculating the mathematical expectation of a random variable.
Consider as an example the following unbiased estimator for
Let be independent realizations of the estimator Then we can approximate by the sample average The approximation error is calculated as where is the sample variance.
For simulating a Markov chain , we can use the formulas
where the random variables and the random vectors are stochastically independent. The variables are distributed on the interval and have a distribution density . All the components of the vector are stochastically independent and have a standard normal distribution.
4. Conjugate Scheme
Now we apply the technique developed in [8] to Equation (10). Fix a number q and generate a random variable N having a geometric distribution (, ). The random variables
are unbiased estimators for We execute m times the procedure of evaluation of the integral in (11) to determine the unbiased estimator for . This procedure is similar to the procedure of evaluation of the integral (3.8) in [8]. Namely, let be an ellipsoid centered at zero, and let be an area of the sphere of radius 1 in . The random vector is distributed on with density
After the calculation of the kernel we have
where denotes the transposed vector and denotes the trace of the matrix A. E is the mathematical expectation of the function of random variable .
All coefficients in the Equation (2) belong to the Hölder class. Hence, we can simplify the expressions in (23):
where are bounded functions.
Substituting these expressions into (23) and putting we obtain the following representation for
The unbiased estimator for has the form:
where the random variables are distributed on the interval . The variables and have densities and , respectively, and is distributed uniformly. The variable has a gamma distribution with a density .
Choosing one of the summands in (27) with probability and multiplying it by 6, we obtain the final unbiased estimator for .
The unbiased estimators for can be constructed on trajectories of the inhomogeneous Markov chain with initial point . Consider stochastically independent random elements , , , The initial value of the variable is 1. At step k we consider and multiply the variable by the corresponding weight factor. The arguments of the function u determine the next state of the Markov chain. For example, if the first summand of the estimator (27) was chosen at step then we multiply variable by
and define the next point by formulas:
After m steps, we multiply the variable by an estimator for which is equal to
So, the random variables
are unbiased estimators for . Repeating the arguments of the proof of Theorem 1 in [8], it is easy to prove that constructed estimators have finite variances.
Remark 1.
The unbiased estimators constructed above and the algorithm for calculating them can be used in the Monte Carlo method to find This computational algorithm is more complex than the algorithm in Section 3. On the other hand this algorithm does not require an estimate of spectrum of matrix
Funding
The research is supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project No. 17-01-00267.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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