English

A Formalization of the Ionescu-Tulcea Theorem in Mathlib

Probability 2026-03-18 v5 Digital Libraries

Abstract

We describe the formalization of the Ionescu-Tulcea theorem, showing the existence of a probability measure on the space of trajectories of a Markov chain, in the proof assistant Lean using the integrated library Mathlib. We first present a mathematical proof before exposing the difficulties which arise when trying to formalize it, and how they were overcome. We then build on this work to formalize the construction of the product of an arbitrary family of probability measures.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2506.18616,
  title  = {A Formalization of the Ionescu-Tulcea Theorem in Mathlib},
  author = {Etienne Marion},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.18616},
  year   = {2026}
}