Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/paper-2/17/b/solution

Substitute into the unforced system. It gives , so a nonzero single-exponential solution must use one of the eigendirections in part (a):
These are all nonzero solutions having one common decay constant. Their arbitrary linear combination is the general unforced solution; all decay because the three eigenvalues are positive.

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