On the time a diffusion process spends along a line

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Main Authors: Hjort, Nils Lid, Khasminskii, Rafail Zalmonovich
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Hjort, Nils Lid
Khasminskii, Rafail Zalmonovich
author_facet Hjort, Nils Lid
Khasminskii, Rafail Zalmonovich
contents For an arbitrary diffusion process $X$ with time-homogeneous drift and variance parameters $μ(x)$ and $σ^2(x)$, let $V_\varepsilon$ be $1/\varepsilon$ times the total time $X(t)$ spends in the strip $[a+bt-(1/2)\varepsilon,a+bt+(1/2)\varepsilon]$.The limit $V$ as $\varepsilon\rightarrow0$ is the full halfline version of the local time of $X(t)-a-bt$ at zero, and can be thought of as the time $X$ spends along the straight line $x=a+bt$. We prove that $V$ is either infinite with probability 1 or distributed as a mixture of an exponential and a unit point mass at zero, and we give formulae for the parameters of this distribution in terms of $μ(\cdot)$, $σ(\cdot)$, $a$, $b$, and the starting point $X(0)$. The special case ofa Brownian motion is studied in more detail, leading in particular to a full process $V(b)$ with continuous sample paths and exponentially distributed marginals. This construction leads to new families of bivariate and multivariate exponential distributions. Truncated versions of such `total relative time' variables are also studied. A relation is pointed out to a second order asymptotics problem in statistical estimation theory, recently investigated in Hjort and Fenstad (1992a, 1992b).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_00784
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the time a diffusion process spends along a line
Hjort, Nils Lid
Khasminskii, Rafail Zalmonovich
Probability
Statistics Theory
For an arbitrary diffusion process $X$ with time-homogeneous drift and variance parameters $μ(x)$ and $σ^2(x)$, let $V_\varepsilon$ be $1/\varepsilon$ times the total time $X(t)$ spends in the strip $[a+bt-(1/2)\varepsilon,a+bt+(1/2)\varepsilon]$.The limit $V$ as $\varepsilon\rightarrow0$ is the full halfline version of the local time of $X(t)-a-bt$ at zero, and can be thought of as the time $X$ spends along the straight line $x=a+bt$. We prove that $V$ is either infinite with probability 1 or distributed as a mixture of an exponential and a unit point mass at zero, and we give formulae for the parameters of this distribution in terms of $μ(\cdot)$, $σ(\cdot)$, $a$, $b$, and the starting point $X(0)$. The special case ofa Brownian motion is studied in more detail, leading in particular to a full process $V(b)$ with continuous sample paths and exponentially distributed marginals. This construction leads to new families of bivariate and multivariate exponential distributions. Truncated versions of such `total relative time' variables are also studied. A relation is pointed out to a second order asymptotics problem in statistical estimation theory, recently investigated in Hjort and Fenstad (1992a, 1992b).
title On the time a diffusion process spends along a line
topic Probability
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.00784