Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2020/paper-1/20/c/solution

The three components of the curl cancel pairwise:
The domain is all of , which is simply connected, so this is consistent with a conservative vector field. To construct its scalar potential, integrate to obtain . Matching gives , hence . Finally forces . Consequently
Every scalar potential differs by a constant on this connected domain. The endpoint values differ by one, agreeing with the line integral in part (a).

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