Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2005/iii/paper-75/1/4/solution

When , expand the square root in the exact frequencies. The fast branch has
while the slow branch has . Hence
The fast dispersive wave is the mode sought in the question's subsequent fast-time limit. In a strongly oblique wave, , so its frequency scales as . The slow branch instead tends to , where the ion cyclotron frequency is .
There is a terminology qualification: in the pressure-free incompressible Hall equations used here, the fast branch is conventionally a whistler wave. The question calls the requested small-scale waves kinetic Alfvén waves, but a general kinetic-Alfvén dispersion includes pressure/kinetic ordering absent from these equations. The boxed dispersion is the result for the printed model; no extra pressure response or kinetic term has been silently added.

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