Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-69/1/iv/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 69 1 iv Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The partial differential equation. Each term in is a translated heat kernel and satisfies for . The same holds for , either by direct differentiation or because it is . For , and its derivatives vanish faster than any power as . Therefore differentiating the boundary convolution creates no extra upper-endpoint term. Gaussian domination justifies differentiating both integrals on compact subsets of , proving the advection-diffusion equation.
The initial condition. For fixed , the first Gaussian in is an approximate identity centered at . Its integral tends to . The reflected Gaussian is exponentially small as , because its center lies outside the half-line. The boundary convolution also tends to zero for . Thus .
The Dirichlet boundary condition. The identityshows that , so the initial-data contribution vanishes at zero. The boundary contribution must be evaluated as a limit, not by substituting inside its singular integral. The positive kernel satisfiesfor every . Hence it is a one-sided approximate identity at zero time, and continuity of givesThe mass formula follows from the Gaussian Laplace integral, or from the decaying solution of the corresponding constant-coefficient ordinary differential equation. Compatibility gives the continuous corner value. These arguments also verify the equivalent contour solution in (iii). In the decaying energy class the solution is unique: the difference of two solutions has zero data and for real solutions, with the analogous modulus identity for complex solutions.
The unheaded sine transform question. The direct classical Fourier sine transform does not close on . Ifthen integration by parts givesThe drift introduces an unknown cosine transform; the usual scalar sine-transform solution of the heat equation is therefore unavailable directly.
A Dirichlet gauge transform for constant drift does provide a qualified alternative. Set . Then , with and . If these weighted data have the decay needed for an ordinary Fourier sine transform, it solves the transformed problem and produces exactly the kernel above. Mere decay of does not ensure this weighted integrability. Thus not directly by the classical sine transform of ; yes after a gauge transformation when the required weighted-transform hypotheses hold, or after a justified cutoff/limit argument.
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