Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-54/2/e/solution

The hypothesis is , with the physical surface density nonnegative. At height , the vertical derivative of an isolated thin-disk gravitational potential has a strictly positive kernel:
The same formula with represents . The triangle inequality and the strict surface density bound therefore give the positive-kernel comparison of thin-disk fields
Use . The integrand in part (c) is then in the upper vacuum region. Reflection symmetry gives the same result below; the infinitesimally thin disk has zero three-dimensional volume. Thus, with the finite-integral assumptions of the tensor virial theorem,
Since the disk starts at rest, initially and its radial second moment begins to decrease. This is magnetic subcriticality of a razor-thin disk: magnetic support cannot prevent initial contraction in the global virial sense. The conclusion concerns the mass-weighted radial size, and does not by itself prove that every fluid element accelerates inward or that contraction continues indefinitely.

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