Path integrals developed by Richard Feynman have been an important tool in Physics in studying quantum field theory. In mathematics, it has also been widely used in providing formal proofs in the study of Index theorem and asymptotic behaviors of heat kernels. Finite dimensional approximations to path integral representations give a way to interpret path integrals and make the formal argument rigorous. The central idea is to restrict a path integral to smaller path spaces where everything is well defined and then interpret the original path integral as a "limit" when smaller path spaces "exhaust" the full path space (Wiener space). In this talk I will present a finite dimensional approximation to Brownian bridge on a symmetric space of non-compact type using pinned piecewise geodesic space adapted to partitions of time. Meanwhile we get a finite-dimensional analogue of Watanabe's measure representation of generalized Wiener functionals on manifold.
Biography
Zhehua Li is currently a Postdoc fellow at NYU Shanghai. He obtained his Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego under the supervision of Prof. Bruce Driver. His research interests include stochastic analysis, SPDE and related problems in mathematical physics.