
ABrownian bridge is a continuous-timegaussian processB(t) whoseprobability distribution is theconditional probability distribution of a standardWiener processW(t) (a mathematical model ofBrownian motion) subject to the condition (when standardized) thatW(T) = 0, so that the process is pinned to the same value at botht = 0 andt = T. More precisely:
The expected value of the bridge at any in the interval is zero, with variance, implying that the most uncertainty is in the middle of the bridge, with zero uncertainty at the nodes. Thecovariance ofB(s) andB(t) is, or if.The increments in a Brownian bridge are not independent.
If is a standard Wiener process (i.e., for, isnormally distributed with expected value and variance, and theincrements are stationary and independent), then
is a Brownian bridge for. It is independent of[1]
Conversely, if is a Brownian bridge for and is a standardnormal random variable independent of, then the process
is a Wiener process for. More generally, a Wiener process for can be decomposed into
Another representation of the Brownian bridge based on the Brownian motion is, for
Conversely, for
The Brownian bridge may also be represented as a Fourier series with stochastic coefficients, as
where areindependent identically distributed standard normal random variables (see theKarhunen–Loève theorem).
A Brownian bridge is the result ofDonsker's theorem in the area ofempirical processes. It is also used in theKolmogorov–Smirnov test in the area ofstatistical inference.
Let, for a Brownian bridge with; then thecumulative distribution function of is given by[2]
The Brownian bridge can be "split" by finding the last zero before the midpoint, and the first zero after, forming a (scaled) bridge over, anexcursion over, and another bridge over. The joint pdf of is given by
which can be conditionally sampled as
where are uniformly distributed random variables over (0,1).
A standard Wiener process satisfiesW(0) = 0 and is therefore "tied down" to the origin, but other points are not restricted. In a Brownian bridge process on the other hand, not only isB(0) = 0 but we also require thatB(T) = 0, that is the process is "tied down" att =T as well. Just as a literal bridge is supported by pylons at both ends, a Brownian Bridge is required to satisfy conditions at both ends of the interval [0,T]. (In a slight generalization, one sometimes requiresB(t1) = a andB(t2) = b wheret1,t2,a andb are known constants.)
Suppose we have generated a number of pointsW(0),W(1),W(2),W(3), etc. of a Wiener process path by computer simulation. It is now desired to fill in additional points in the interval [0,T], that is to interpolate between the already generated points. The solution is to use a collection ofT Brownian bridges, the first of which is required to go through the valuesW(0) andW(1), the second throughW(1) andW(2) and so on until theTth goes throughW(T-1) andW(T).
For the general case whenW(t1) =a andW(t2) =b, the distribution ofB at timet ∈ (t1, t2) isnormal, withmean
andvariance
and thecovariance betweenB(s) andB(t), withs < t is