Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2024/paper-2/13/b/ii/solution

On the circular arc, and , so the line integral reduces to
This exact differential evaluation applies to the specified arc; for example its parametric equation is , . On the vertical segment , only contributes, giving . The whole path therefore gives
To answer the final conservativeness requirement, compute the curl:
It vanishes identically exactly when
On the simply connected whole space this condition is sufficient for a conservative vector field. Explicitly a vector-field potential is
Both path calculations then give , equal to by the fundamental theorem for line integrals. Equality of just these two path values would only force ; it is the curl calculation that establishes full path independence.

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