Girsanov theorem

Visualisation of the Girsanov theorem. The left side shows a Wiener process with negative drift under a canonical measure P; on the right side each path of the process is colored according to its likelihood under the martingale measure Q. The density transformation from P to Q is given by the Girsanov theorem.

In probability theory, the Girsanov theorem tells how stochastic processes change under changes in measure. The theorem is especially important in the theory of financial mathematics as it tells how to convert from the physical measure, which describes the probability that an underlying instrument (such as a share price or interest rate) will take a particular value or values, to the risk-neutral measure which is a very useful tool for evaluating the value of derivatives on the underlying.