# How to calculate the covariance between two stochastic integrals?

How to calculate the covariance between the integral of a Brownian motion at different times: $$\text{Cov}\left(\int^{t_1}_0\sigma(t)dW_t,\int^{t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t\right)\ ?$$ I know the answer is: $$\int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma^2(t)dt.$$

If $$\int^{s}_0\sigma(t)dW_t$$ was a Brownian motion, then the above answer would be obvious, but unfortunately it's not. So how to calculate such covariance?

we obtain: \begin{align} & \text{Cov}\left(\int^{t_1}_0\sigma(t)dW_t,\int^{t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t\right) \\[6pt] & \qquad = \text{Cov}\left(\int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t,\int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t +\int^{t_1\vee t_2}_{t_1\wedge t_2}\sigma(t)dW_t\right) \\[6pt] & \qquad \overset{1}{=} V\left(\int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t\right)+\text{Cov}\left(\int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t,\int^{t_1\vee t_2}_{t_1\wedge t_2}\sigma(t)dW_t\right) \\[6pt] & \qquad \overset{2}{=} E\left(\left(\int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma(t)dW_t\right)^2\right) \\[6pt] & \qquad \overset{3}{=} \int^{t_1\wedge t_2}_0\sigma^2(t)dt \end{align}
• What do the notations $t_1\wedge t_2$ and $t_1 \vee t_2$ mean? How can we get the expectation in 2nd-last line? – Bogaso Aug 8 at 17:32
• $x\wedge y=\min(x,y)$, $x\vee y=\max(x,y)$. The expectation is obtained by noting that the covariance is null and using Itô’s Isometry. – Daneel Olivaw Aug 8 at 20:15