Dynkin system

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Short description: Family closed under complements and countable disjoint unions

A Dynkin system,[1] named after Eugene Dynkin, is a collection of subsets of another universal set Ω satisfying a set of axioms weaker than those of 𝜎-algebra. Dynkin systems are sometimes referred to as 𝜆-systems (Dynkin himself used this term) or d-system.[2] These set families have applications in measure theory and probability.

A major application of 𝜆-systems is the π-𝜆 theorem, see below.

Definition

Let Ω be a nonempty set, and let D be a collection of subsets of Ω (that is, D is a subset of the power set of Ω). Then D is a Dynkin system if

  1. ΩD;
  2. D is closed under complements of subsets in supersets: if A,BD and AB, then BAD;
  3. D is closed under countable increasing unions: if A1A2A3 is an increasing sequence[note 1] of sets in D then n=1AnD.

It is easy to check[proof 1] that any Dynkin system D satisfies:

  1. D;
  2. D is closed under complements in Ω: if AD, then ΩAD;
    • Taking A:=Ω shows that D.
  3. D is closed under countable unions of pairwise disjoint sets: if A1,A2,A3, is a sequence of pairwise disjoint sets in D (meaning that AiAj= for all ij) then n=1AnD.
    • To be clear, this property also holds for finite sequences A1,,An of pairwise disjoint sets (by letting Ai:= for all i>n).

Conversely, it is easy to check that a family of sets that satisfy conditions 4-6 is a Dynkin class.[proof 2] For this reason, a small group of authors have adopted conditions 4-6 to define a Dynkin system as they are easier to verify.

An important fact is that any Dynkin system that is also a π-system (that is, closed under finite intersections) is a 𝜎-algebra. This can be verified by noting that conditions 2 and 3 together with closure under finite intersections imply closure under finite unions, which in turn implies closure under countable unions.

Given any collection 𝒥 of subsets of Ω, there exists a unique Dynkin system denoted D{𝒥} which is minimal with respect to containing 𝒥. That is, if D~ is any Dynkin system containing 𝒥, then D{𝒥}D~. D{𝒥} is called the Dynkin system generated by 𝒥. For instance, D{}={,Ω}. For another example, let Ω={1,2,3,4} and 𝒥={1}; then D{𝒥}={,{1},{2,3,4},Ω}.

Sierpiński–Dynkin's π-λ theorem

Sierpiński-Dynkin's π-𝜆 theorem:[3] If P is a π-system and D is a Dynkin system with PD, then σ{P}D.

In other words, the 𝜎-algebra generated by P is contained in D. Thus a Dynkin system contains a π-system if and only if it contains the 𝜎-algebra generated by that π-system.

One application of Sierpiński-Dynkin's π-𝜆 theorem is the uniqueness of a measure that evaluates the length of an interval (known as the Lebesgue measure):

Let (Ω,,) be the unit interval [0,1] with the Lebesgue measure on Borel sets. Let m be another measure on Ω satisfying m[(a,b)]=ba, and let D be the family of sets S such that m[S]=[S]. Let I:={(a,b),[a,b),(a,b],[a,b]:0<ab<1}, and observe that I is closed under finite intersections, that ID, and that is the 𝜎-algebra generated by I. It may be shown that D satisfies the above conditions for a Dynkin-system. From Sierpiński-Dynkin's π-𝜆 Theorem it follows that D in fact includes all of , which is equivalent to showing that the Lebesgue measure is unique on .

Application to probability distributions

See also

  • Algebra of sets – Identities and relationships involving sets
  • δ-ring – Ring closed under countable intersections
  • Field of sets – Algebraic concept in measure theory, also referred to as an algebra of sets
  • π-system – Family of sets closed under intersection
  • Ring of sets – Family closed under unions and relative complements
  • Σ-algebra – Algebraic structure of set algebra
  • 𝜎-ideal – Family closed under subsets and countable unions
  • 𝜎-ring – Ring closed under countable unions

Notes

  1. A sequence of sets A1,A2,A3, is called increasing if AnAn+1 for all n1.

Proofs

  1. Assume 𝒟 satisfies (1), (2), and (3). Proof of (5) :Property (5) follows from (1) and (2) by using B:=Ω. The following lemma will be used to prove (6). Lemma: If A,B𝒟 are disjoint then AB𝒟. Proof of Lemma: AB= implies BΩA, where ΩAΩ by (5). Now (2) implies that 𝒟 contains (ΩA)B=Ω(AB) so that (5) guarantees that AB𝒟, which proves the lemma. Proof of (6) Assume that A1,A2,A3, are pairwise disjoint sets in 𝒟. For every integer n>0, the lemma implies that Dn:=A1An𝒟 where because D1D2D3 is increasing, (3) guarantees that 𝒟 contains their union D1D2=A1A2, as desired.
  2. Assume 𝒟 satisfies (4), (5), and (6). proof of (2): If A,B𝒟 satisfy AB then (5) implies ΩB𝒟 and since (ΩB)A=, (6) implies that 𝒟 contains (ΩB)A=Ω(BA) so that finally (4) guarantees that Ω(Ω(BA))=BA is in 𝒟. Proof of (3): Assume A1A2 is an increasing sequence of subsets in 𝒟, let D1=A1, and let Di=AiAi1 for every i>1, where (2) guarantees that D2,D3, all belong to 𝒟. Since D1,D2,D3, are pairwise disjoint, (6) guarantees that their union D1D2D3=A1A2A3 belongs to 𝒟, which proves (3).
  1. Dynkin, E., "Foundations of the Theory of Markov Processes", Moscow, 1959
  2. Aliprantis, Charalambos; Border, Kim C. (2006). Infinite Dimensional Analysis: a Hitchhiker's Guide (Third ed.). Springer. https://books.google.com/books?id=4vyXtR3vUhoC&pg=PA135. Retrieved August 23, 2010. 
  3. Sengupta. "Lectures on measure theory lecture 6: The Dynkin π − λ Theorem". https://www.math.lsu.edu/~sengupta/7360f09/DynkinPiLambda.pdf. 

References