Kolmogorov equations for stochastic Volterra processes with singular kernels

Abstract

We associate backward and forward Kolmogorov equations to a class of fully nonlinear Stochastic Volterra Equations (SVEs) with convolution kernels $K$ that are singular at the origin. Working on a carefully chosen Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}_1$, we rigorously establish a link between solutions of SVEs and Markovian mild solutions of a Stochastic Partial Differential Equation (SPDE) of transport-type. Then, we obtain two novel Itô formulae for functionals of mild solutions and, as a byproduct, show that their laws solve corresponding Fokker-Planck equations. Finally, we introduce a natural notion of "singular" directional derivatives along $K$ and prove that (conditional) expectations of SVE solutions can be expressed in terms of the unique solution to a backward Kolmogorov equation on $\mathcal{H}_1$. Our analysis relies on stochastic calculus in Hilbert spaces, the reproducing kernel property of the state space $\mathcal{H}_1,$ as well as crucial invariance and smoothing properties that are specific to the SPDEs of interest. In the special case of singular power-law kernels, our conditions guarantee well-posedness of the backward equation either for all values of the Hurst parameter $H,$ when the noise is additive, or for all $H>1/4$ when the noise is multiplicative.