- Product measure
In
mathematics , given twomeasurable space s and measures on them, one can obtain the product measurable space and the product measure on that space. Conceptually, this is similar to defining theCartesian product of sets and theproduct topology of two topological spaces.Let X_1, Sigma_1) and X_2, Sigma_2) be two
measurable space s, that is, Sigma_1 and Sigma_2 aresigma algebra s on X_1 and X_2 respectively, and let mu_1 and mu_2 be measures on these spaces. Denote by Sigma_1 imes Sigma_2 the sigma algebra on theCartesian product X_1 imes X_2 generated bysubset s of the form B_1 imes B_2, where B_1 in Sigma_1 and B_2 in Sigma_2.The "product measure" mu_1 imes mu_2 is defined to be the unique measure on the measurable space X_1 imes X_2, Sigma_1 imes Sigma_2) satisfying the property
:mu_1 imes mu_2)(B_1 imes B_2) = mu_1(B_1) mu_2(B_2)
for all
:B_1 in Sigma_1, B_2 in Sigma_2.
In fact, for every measurable set "E",
:mu_1 imes mu_2)(E) = int_{X_2} mu_1(E^y),mu_2(dy) = int_{X_1} mu_2(E_{x}),mu_1(dx),
where "E""x" = {"y"∈"X"2|("x","y")∈"E"}, and "E""y" = {"x"∈"X"1|("x","y")∈"E"}, which are both measurable sets.
The existence of this measure is guaranteed by the
Hahn-Kolmogorov theorem . The uniqueness of product measure is guaranteed only in case that both (X1,Σ1,μ1) and (X2,Σ2,μ2) areσ-finite .The
Borel measure on theEuclidean space R"n" can be obtained as the product of "n" copies of the Borel measure on thereal line R.Even if the two factors of the product space are complete measure spaces, the product space may not be. Consequently, the completion procedure is needed to extend the Borel measure into the
Lebesgue measure , or to extend the product of two Lebesgue measures to give the Lebesgue measure on the product space.The opposite construction to the formation of the product of two measures is disintegration, which in some sense "splits" a given measure into a family of measures that can be integrated to give the original measure.
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