On the Stochastic Solution to a Cauchy Problem Associated with Nonnegative Price Processes

We consider the stochastic solution to a Cauchy problem corresponding to a nonnegative diffusion with zero drift, which represents a price process under some risk-neutral measure. When the diffusion coefficient is locally Holder continuous with some exponent in (0,1], the stochastic solution is shown to be a classical solution. A comparison theorem for the Cauchy problem is also proved, without the linear growth condition on the diffusion coefficient. Moreover, we establish the equivalence: the stochastic solution is the unique classical solution to the Cauchy problem if, and only if, a comparison theorem holds. For the case where the stochastic solution may not be smooth, we characterize it as a limit of smooth stochastic solutions associated with some approximating Cauchy problems.