English

The Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing, Formalized in Lean 4

Mathematical Finance 2026-06-27 v1

Abstract

The Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing states that a market is free of arbitrage exactly when it admits an equivalent martingale measure. We formalize it in Lean 4 over Mathlib in three settings: a finite-state market over a finite horizon (Harrison-Pliska), a one-period market on an arbitrary probability space with a single scalar return (Follmer-Schied), and a one-period market with finitely many assets. The finite case is the geometry of a separating hyperplane; the scalar one-period case is an elementary change of measure. In the dd-asset case the equivalent martingale measure is constructed explicitly, as the minimiser of the smooth convex potential E[log(1+eθ,Y)]\mathbb{E}[\log(1+e^{\langle\theta,Y\rangle})]: absence of arbitrage is precisely coercivity of the potential, its first-order condition is the martingale property, and the minimiser's logistic weight is the density of the measure. The construction uses no Hahn-Banach theorem, no L0L^0-closedness argument, no measurable selection, and no non-redundancy hypothesis. To our knowledge this is the first machine-checked Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing in any proof assistant. The boundary is explicit: the general multi-period Dalang-Morton-Willinger theorem lies outside the development. Every theorem is sorry-free, each headline result's axioms are pinned to Mathlib's classical defaults by a build-enforced gate, and the whole is reproducible from a pinned toolchain.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2606.28990,
  title  = {The Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing, Formalized in Lean 4},
  author = {Raphael Coelho},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2606.28990},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

9 pages, 1 figure, 1 table. Formalized in Lean 4 over Mathlib; companion to the formal-mathfin library (arXiv:2606.01356)