Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-year-2-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/paper-1/8/b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2023 Paper 1 8 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
Seek a Frobenius solution with . Since , its lowest coefficient gives the indicial equationThus the repeated indicial root is . Equating the coefficient of before setting givesFor this becomes the linear recurrence relationEvery coefficient is fixed by , since the denominator never vanishes for . In particular and then every odd coefficient is zero. Therefore there is , not two merely because the indicial root repeats. If "power series" means an ordinary Taylor series with nonnegative integer powers, the only such solution is zero: its coefficient equation starts with and inductively forces all coefficients to vanish.
A second independent local solution is a logarithmic solution from a repeated Frobenius exponent. Indeed, Abel's identity gives . For the normalized first solution , reduction of order givesAfter choosing the harmless multiplicative constant in the numerator, its integrand is , so . The nonzero logarithmic coefficient proves that this second solution is not another pure Frobenius solution.
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