Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2011/ii/paper-3/21g/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2011 ii Paper 3 21G Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The spectrum of a bounded operator is . Initially define on finite linear combinations of the orthonormal basis. The bilateral shift operator preserves the Hilbert space norm and extends to a unitary operator on ; its inverse is . Thus extends uniquely by density, is bounded with norm at most two, and is self-adjoint.
For , and the only nonzero coefficients of occur at . HenceIt follows that , proving . Also : a bounded inverse of would give . Thus two belongs to the approximate point spectrum.
An eigenvector would satisfy . Self-adjointness and the norm bound force . If , write with ; the general complex solution of the linear recurrence relation isThe Cesàro mean of over tends to , since the mixed geometric sum divided by tends to zero. For an sequence the same mean tends to zero. Therefore . At , the general solution is , again square summable only when zero. This also covers through . Thus .
Finally the bounded sequence has images with pairwise disjoint supports. Distinct images have distance two, so no subsequence converges. Hence .
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