Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/ib/paper-3/9f/c/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 ib Paper 3 9F c Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
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 columnobtained by expanding .
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