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This paper provides a probabilistic proof of the comparison result for viscosity solutions of path-dependent semilinear PDEs. We consider the notion of viscosity solutions introduced in [I. Ekren, et al., Ann. Probab., 42 (2014), pp. 204-236], which considers as test functions all those smooth processes which are tangent in mean. When restricted to the Markovian case, this definition induces a larger set of test functions and reduces to the notion of stochastic viscosity solutions analyzed in [E. Bayraktar and M. Sirbu, Proc. Amer. Math. Soc., 140 (2012), pp. 3645-3654; SIAM J. Control Optim., 51 (2013), pp. 4274-4294]. Our main result takes advantage of this enlargement of the test functions and provides an easier proof of comparison. This is most remarkable in the context of the linear path-dependent heat equation. As a key ingredient for our methodology, we introduce a notion of punctual differentiation, similar to the corresponding concept in the standard viscosity solutions [L. A. Caffarelli and X. Cabre, Amer. Math. Soc. Colloq. Publ., 43, AMS, Providence, RI, 1995], and we prove that semimartingales are almost everywhere punctually differentiable. This smoothness result can be viewed as the counterpart of the Aleksandroff smoothness result for convex functions. A similar comparison result was established earlier in [I. Ekren et al., Ann. Probab., 42 (2014), pp. 204-236]. The result of this paper is more general and, more importantly, the arguments that we develop do not rely on any representation of the solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss about monotone vector fields, which is a typical extension to the theory of convex functions, by exploiting the tangent space structure. This new approach to monotonicity in CAT (0) spaces stands in opposed to the monotonicity defined earlier in CAT (0) spaces by Khatibzadeh and Ranjbar [J. Aust. Math. Soc. 103(1), 70–90 (2017).] and Chaipunya and Kumam [Optimization 66(10), 1647–1665 (2017).]. In particular, this new concept extends the theory from both Hilbert spaces and Hadamard manifolds, while the known concept barely has any obvious relationship to the theory in Hadamard manifolds. We also study the corresponding resolvents and Yosida approximations of a given monotone vector field and derive many of their important properties. Finally, we prove a generation theorem by showing convergence of an exponential formula applied to resolvents of a monotone vector field. Our findings improve several known results in the literature including generation theorems of Jost [AMS/IP Stud. Adv. Math., vol. 8, pp. 1–47. Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI (1998)], Mayer [Comm. Anal. Geom. 6(2), 199–253 (1998).], Stojkovic [Adv. Calc. Var. 5(1), 77–126 (2012).], and Bačák [Convex analysis and optimization in Hadamard spaces, De Gruyter Series in Nonlinear Analysis and Applications, vol. 22. De Gruyter, Berlin (2014).] for proper, convex, lower semicontinuous functions in the context of complete CAT (0) spaces, and also by Iwamiya and Okochi [Nonlinear Anal. 54(2), 205–214 (2003).] for monotone vector fields in the context of Hadamard manifolds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]