Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/ib/paper-3/9f/c/solution

If were a nontrivial invariant decomposition, each restricted minimal polynomial would be a power of of degree at most . Their least common multiple is the minimal polynomial of , contradicting its degree .
Since has degree , has a cyclic vector . Put . Then for . In this basis the matrix is the companion matrix with ones immediately below the diagonal and last column
obtained by expanding .

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