Well - posedness of the martingale problem for some degenerate diffusion processes occurring in dynamics of populations ✩

In this paper we establish the well-posedness in C([0,∞); [0,1]d ), for each starting point x ∈ [0,1]d , of the martingale problem associated with a class of degenerate elliptic operators which arise from the dynamics of populations as a generalization of the Fleming–Viot operator. In particular, we prove that such degenerate elliptic operators are closable in the space of continuous functions on [0,1]d and their closure is the generator of a strongly continuous semigroup of contractions.  2004 Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved. MSC: 35B45; 60J70; 35B65; 35J25