analytic solution of Black-Scholes PDE
Here we presentan analyticalsolution for the Black-Scholes partial differential equation,
(1) |
over the domain ,with terminal condition ,by reducing this parabolic PDE tothe heat equation of physics.
We begin by making the substitution:
which is motivated by the fact that it is the portfolio valuediscounted by the interest rate (see the derivation of theBlack-Scholes formula)that is a martingale.Using the product rule
on ,we derive the PDE that the function must satisfy:
or simply,
(2) |
Next, we make the substitutions:
These changes of variables can be motivatedby observing that:
- •
The underlying process described by the variable is a geometric Brownian motion(as explained in the derivation of the Black-Scholes formula itself),so that describes a Brownian motion
, possiblywith a drift.Then should satisfy some sort of diffusion equation(well-known in physics).
- •
The evolution of the systemis backwards from the terminal state of the system. Indeed,the boundary condition
is given as a terminal state,and the coefficient of is positive in equation (2).(Compare with the standard heat equation,, which describes atemperature evolving forwards in time.)So to get to the heat equation,we have to use a substitution to reverse time.
Since
and
substituting in equation (2),we find:
(3) |
The first partial derivative with respect to does not cancel (unless )because we have not take into accountthe drift of the Brownian motion.To cancel the drift (which is linear in time),we make the substitutions:
Under the new coordinate system , we have the relationsamongst vector fields:
leading to the following of equation (3):
or:
(4) |
which is one form of the diffusion equation.The domain is onand ;the initial condition is to be:
The original function can be recoveredby
The fundamental solution of the PDE (4)is known to be:
(derived using the Fourier transform);and the solution with initial condition is given by the convolution:
In terms of the original function :
() which agrees with the result derived using probabilistic methods (http://planetmath.org/BlackScholesFormula).