Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/iii/paper-7/2/f/solution

Literally, the printed hypothesis with positive is impossible for pairs at distance less than one, even when is constant. Use the corrected log-Lipschitz modulus from part (e). Local existence for the continuous finite-dimensional vector field follows from the Peano existence theorem. Boundedness gives . Thus a trajectory cannot escape to infinity in finite time; at a finite endpoint it has a limit, and local existence there extends it. Solutions exist globally.
For uniqueness, let have the same initial point and set . This absolutely continuous function satisfies, almost everywhere,
This is the Osgood uniqueness criterion, rather than the usual linear Gronwall inequality, because the velocity need not be Lipschitz continuous. To see the argument directly, put . As long as , monotonicity of gives
For , this becomes . Integration gives
For any fixed finite interval, this upper bound tends uniformly to zero as . Taking small prevents a first exit through , so the bound remains valid throughout that interval. Thus . Backward time has the same proof. Every initial point has exactly one global trajectory.
The decisive fact is . For different nearby initial points, the same comparison gives
until the separation reaches one. This quantitative continuous dependence makes the flow a homeomorphism, although it need not be a smooth diffeomorphism.

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