Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/iii/paper-105/1/2/b/solution

Repeated integration by parts against a compactly supported test function gives the bilinear formal adjoint
There is no boundary remainder because has compact support. The product rule makes this an order-at-most- linear differential operator with real analytic coefficients. The displayed integral pairing has no complex conjugation, so this is the formal transpose; for a sesquilinear pairing the coefficients would be conjugated.
For uniqueness, suppose is the difference of two candidates. Then for every smooth compactly supported and , so for every such . At an interior point, a polynomial times a cutoff can prescribe every derivative of through order independently. Hence each coefficient of is zero. This proves uniqueness as a differential operator, not only uniqueness of its integrated action.

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