Paper 1, Section II, J

Probability and Measure
Part II, 2018

(a) Let XX be a real random variable with E(X2)<\mathbb{E}\left(X^{2}\right)<\infty. Show that the variance of XX is equal to infaR(E(Xa)2)\inf _{a \in \mathbb{R}}\left(\mathbb{E}(X-a)^{2}\right).

(b) Let f(x)f(x) be the indicator function of the interval [1,1][-1,1] on the real line. Compute the Fourier transform of ff.

(c) Show that

0+(sinxx)2dx=π2\int_{0}^{+\infty}\left(\frac{\sin x}{x}\right)^{2} d x=\frac{\pi}{2}

(d) Let XX be a real random variable and μX^\widehat{\mu_{X}} be its characteristic function.

(i) Assume that μX^(u)=1\left|\widehat{\mu_{X}}(u)\right|=1 for some uRu \in \mathbb{R}. Show that there exists θR\theta \in \mathbb{R} such that almost surely:

uXθ+2πZu X \in \theta+2 \pi \mathbb{Z}

(ii) Assume that μX^(u)=μX^(v)=1\left|\widehat{\mu_{X}}(u)\right|=\left|\widehat{\mu_{X}}(v)\right|=1 for some real numbers uu, vv not equal to 0 and such that u/vu / v is irrational. Prove that XX is almost surely constant. [Hint: You may wish to consider an independent copy of XX.]