Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/paper-2/2/solution

Use separation of variables with and choose . Then and , .
If , write . The first condition gives , and the second gives . Together they force , so this case contributes only the zero solution.
If , write . The first condition gives . The second becomes
A nonzero solution therefore requires , giving and time factor .
If , write . Now , and the remaining condition is . Thus , . Choosing a convenient amplitude gives . The complete Sturm-Liouville eigenfunction expansion is consequently
These are self-adjoint separated Robin boundary conditions: the boundary form vanishes because both functions satisfy at each end. The regular interval problem has a complete orthogonal eigenbasis; the calculation includes its one negative eigenvalue for , not only its positive ones.
To project the initial data, calculate the squared norms:
The second identity uses the half-unit integrals of and and the zero integral of their product. By orthogonal projection,
For square-integrable , the initial expansion is understood in that norm. Classical agreement of boundary derivatives at requires compatible smoother data.
This is Robin diffusion with a growing mode, in the reflected version of its positive-coordinate-derivative example. Growth is not a contradiction: the outward derivative is at the left endpoint, so these conditions are not dissipative outward-normal conditions at both ends. Indeed
and the boundary can supply energy. The growing contribution is absent exactly when the displayed integral defining vanishes.
Figure 1.
The growing exponential mode and two decaying oscillatory modes satisfy the same coordinate-derivative boundary conditions
. Details.

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