Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ii Paper 4 19G Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Use an inner product linear in the first variable. For each , the bounded linear functional is represented uniquely by a vector under the Riesz representation theorem, so . Uniqueness and the conjugate-linearity in the second argument imply . FurthermoreThus the adjoint operator exists, is linear and bounded, and is unique because a vector orthogonal to every is zero.
A normal operator satisfies . The unilateral unilateral shift operator on is bounded but not normal: , whereas . For general ,Normality implies equality of norms. Conversely equality for every makes this self-adjoint operator's quadratic form zero; the polarization identity then gives .
An approximate eigenvalue has unit vectors with . It is necessarily in the spectrum, since a bounded inverse would prevent this. Conversely suppose is not an approximate eigenvalue. Then is bounded below, . It is injective and has closed range: a convergent sequence forces to be Cauchy. The operator is normal, so and . The identity makes its range dense. Closed and dense means surjective, and its inverse is bounded by . Hence is in the resolvent. This proves .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 2 17B d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Apply the adjoint operator identity of part (c) with and use part (a):For a nonzero eigenfunction, positivity of the norm in particular forces . Hence the requested norm isIt vanishes exactly at the ground-state energy.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 3 10F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
We prove the finite-dimensional spectral theorem for normal operators by induction on dimension. A complex linear operator has an eigenvector with eigenvalue , by the fundamental theorem of algebra. For a normal operator , the operator is also normal, andfor every . Applying this to shows .
Normalize . Its orthogonal complement is invariant under both and : the adjoint operator identities pair with through , and with through . The restricted operator on remains normal, and its adjoint is the restriction of . Induction supplies an orthonormal eigenbasis of , which together with gives one for .
Conversely, in an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors, is diagonal and is the diagonal matrix of the conjugate eigenvalues. The two diagonal operators commute. Thus normality is equivalent to an orthonormal eigenbasis. The zero-dimensional case is immediate.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 4 10F a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
The algebraic dual map is , defined by . The annihilator of a vector subspace isEvery functional vanishes on , so . Conversely, let . Define a functional on by . It is well defined because two preimages differ by an element of . Extend a basis of to one of and extend the functional arbitrarily, for instance by zero on the extra basis vectors. The resulting satisfies .
This is the dual image and kernel annihilator identity. ThereforeThe basis extension theorem also gives . By the rank-nullity theorem,Apply rank-nullity theorem to both maps, using , to obtainOver , this is the algebraic dual, without complex conjugation; the adjoint operator in part (b) uses the inner products instead.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 4 10F b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
The adjoint operator is uniquely characterized byLet . Its quadratic form is nonnegative:If , both norms vanish. In particular , while means is orthogonal to , by the defining adjoint operator identity. A vector belonging to a vector subspace and its orthogonal complement must be zero. Hence is injective, and finite dimensionality makes it surjective.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 102 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The form attached to is . More generally, for a Lie algebra representation , the Trace form of a Lie algebra representation isThe unqualified Killing form is the special case of the Adjoint representation,The distinction matters: a Trace form of a Lie algebra representation can be degenerate even when is semisimple, for example on the trivial Lie algebra representation.
The Trace form of a Lie algebra representation is bilinear and symmetric, because . It is an invariant bilinear form on a Lie algebra:This follows by expanding both commutators and cyclically permuting factors under the matrix trace. Equivalently,Its radical of a bilinear form is an ideal of a Lie algebra, since if , then . The Killing form is also preserved by every automorphism of a Lie algebra, because the corresponding adjoint operators are conjugate. On a complex finite-dimensional Lie algebra, the Cartan criterion for semisimplicity says that the Killing form is nondegenerate exactly when the Lie algebra is semisimple. The Cartan solvability criterion says that is solvable exactly when .
We next construct the sl2 subalgebra associated with a root. Use the root-space decompositionFor , , invariance of the Killing form givesThus unless , and for nonzero . Nondegeneracy of on now implies that is a root and that pairs and nondegenerately.
Nondegeneracy of defines a unique byChoose and with . Their Lie bracket lies in the zero root space, namely , andTherefore .
The essential nonisotropic root lemma is that . Suppose instead that it vanished. Then , so would be a solvable Lie algebra with derived algebra . Apply the Lie theorem to its action on by the Adjoint representation. The commutator is strictly upper triangular in a suitable basis, hence nilpotent. But , so the root-space decomposition makes diagonalizable. A diagonalizable nilpotent linear map is zero. Thus is central in . The center of a Lie algebra of a semisimple Lie algebra is zero; equivalently a central element lies in the radical of the Killing form. This forces , contradicting .
Writing , defineThe root-space decomposition and giveThe three vectors are linearly independent because they lie in the distinct summands , , and . Their span is therefore a copy of the sl2 Lie algebra.
The weight lattice consists of the functionals integral on all coroots. With the coroot above, the weight lattice iswhere the fundamental weights satisfy for the simple roots . Here lies in the real span of the roots, viewed inside .
The classification of finite-dimensional sl2 representations says that every finite-dimensional complex sl2 Lie algebra representation is a direct sum of irreducibles , , on which the standard has eigenvalues . Restrict any finite-dimensional Lie algebra representation of to each sl2 subalgebra associated with a root. If has weight , then , so is an integer. Thus every weight lies in . The same restrictions show that the commuting simple coroots act diagonalizably, justifying the simultaneous weight-space decomposition.
For , the roots are , , and . Work on with the alternating bilinear form having matrixThe symplectic Lie algebra isUsing the matrix units , take the Cartan subalgebraDefine . A regular diagonal element of has centralizer precisely , and every element of acts diagonalizably. Thus it is a Cartan subalgebra. The requested Cartan decomposition is the root-space decompositionChoose positive roots , , , . The symplectic root sl2 triple are given explicitly byFor the negative root spaces, use the corresponding . These eight root vectors, together with , form a basis: the block description above has dimension , and the ten listed vectors are independent. Finally, the matrix unit identityverifies for every row. The diagonal differences verify and . Thus each row supplies a basis of the required sl2 subalgebra associated with a root.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 111 4 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use , the necessary parameter range for the bounds involving . The construction comes from the singular value decomposition of matrix Fourier blocks. For each inequivalent unitary irreducible representation of dimension , consider the Hilbert space with the Hilbert-Schmidt inner product and the operatorIts operator norm is at most one, since is a unitary matrix and . Thus all its singular values lie in .
Two identities control their weighted moments:Here the expectation in is uniform on the solutions of the constraint, and the trace on used to compute each moment is the ordinary operator trace. We justify the identities explicitly to fix their normalizations and the noncommutative order.
The adjoint operator is , soFor rectangular matrices, the operator has trace , as is seen on the matrix-unit basis. Squaring the previous operator therefore givesThe required representation theory consists of unitarization of a finite-group representation, the Schur orthogonality relations, and the regular representation decomposition. The last gives the character expansion of the identity deltaSumming the two operator traces with weights selects in the first, and in the second. Multiplication by converts each independent-variable expectation to its conditional expectation. This proves . In particular is real and nonnegative, despite the apparently complex summands in its original formula. Since , the nonvacuous hypothesis has .
Select every singular value satisfying . Index the selected pairs by , set , , and choose unit right singular vectors and unit left singular vectors with . DefineBoth are matrices, proving (i). Repeated group representations in this list are literally the same chosen representative, rather than different equivalent realizations.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 326 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The given map is the unilateral shift operator. Its adjoint operator is the left shift operator, sinceThe shift is an isometry with trivial kernel and closed range . Its range has orthogonal complement , so every square-summable datum is admissible. Consequently,Indeed , while is the required orthogonal projection. The discarded first component is the residual of the least-squares solution, not an obstruction to the existence of the Moore–Penrose inverse of an operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 326 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Let and assume . The scalar Poisson data fidelity integrand has derivative . Applying the permitted interchange of differentiation and integration in a direction givesThus the ambient-space Fréchet derivative, or its Hilbert space gradient when the pairing is an inner product, isThe quotient is pointwise, and the adjoint operator transports it back from the data domain to the source domain. The chosen spaces must ensure the integrals and derivative pairing are finite; an output bounded away from zero is a useful sufficient condition.
The printed set of probability density functions and positive cone are not vector spaces, so the notation for a bounded linear map between them is understood as a positive bounded linear operator on ambient function spaces, restricted to admissible inputs. If unit mass is a constraint, admissible directions satisfy . The displayed gradient is then a representative modulo an additive constant; optimization with that constraint additionally includes its normal cone.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 331 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the kinetic-energy inner product , with perturbation energy . On divergence-free fields the primal generator, before the pressure projection, isThe base state is also divergence-free. The periodic boundary terms in cancel, and decay at removes the remaining boundary terms. Integration by parts changes to ; the Laplacian is self-adjoint under these conditions. Writing , the shear term has adjoint operator . A pressure gradient pairs to zero with a divergence-free field. Hencewhere the last term enforces the divergence-free projection.
To conserve over the finite interval, the physical-time adjoint obeys . Put and ; then . This reverses the interval from towards , or towards .
For , the vorticity cross-product identity and the curl of a cross producthold when both fields are divergence-free. Their difference equals the transport and shear terms in the adjoint operator. Therefore the adjoint linearized Navier-Stokes evolution isThe Leray-Helmholtz projection determines the adjoint pressure. The time-dependent base state is evaluated at ; no extra time derivative of that base state appears in the spatial adjoint operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 335 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Write , . Uniformly for in the source ball,For fixed and , the outgoing Green function for the three-dimensional Helmholtz equation therefore has the far-field approximation for an outgoing sourceSubstitution into the source integral yieldsThus the source-to-far-field operator at fixed frequency isIt samples the Fourier transform of the source on the sphere of radius . Its square-integrable kernel makes it a Hilbert-Schmidt operator, hence a compact operator. In factUse complex inner products linear in the first argument: . Interchanging the volume and surface integrals givesHence the adjoint source-to-far-field operator isThis is a normalized Herglotz wave function; the change in exponential sign comes from the complex conjugation in the adjoint operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 326 4 5 Solution 2026-10-06
Use the standard bounded linear operator setting for , so the adjoint operator in the updates is defined on every datum. Put . The generalized singular vector relation is with and . For an absolutely one-homogeneous functional, a subgradient at is characterized by and for all . Consequently is also a subgradient at every positive multiple of , and for every .
Use the initialization and start the first update at ; the PDF lists despite specifying only index-zero initial data. Suppose with . DefineIf it is positive, and satisfy the optimality equation and the dual update. If it is zero, take and . Thus this compatible branch hasInduction proves the finite termination of Bregman iteration on a singular vector formulasOnce the dual coefficient reaches , the next reconstruction is . Therefore a guaranteed stopping index for this branch isThe formulas also cover , where exact reconstruction occurs at the first update. The subgradient conditions are sufficient for global minimization because each objective is convex.
There is a genuine uniqueness issue in the printed claim about arbitrary iterates. Strict convexity of data fidelity in ensures that any two minimizers at a given step have the same image under . Induction therefore makes every minimizer branch have the same dual variables and attain exact data at the stated finite index. It does not make their states equal to the specified if has a null space.
For a counterexample take , , , , , and . Every step leaves completely unconstrained. Choosing the minimizing state's second coordinate to be gives valid updates and subgradients but never reaches and does not converge as a state sequence. Thus finite exact-data recovery holds for all minimizer branches; exact recovery of the stated vector needs uniqueness or the aligned branch. If is injective, equal reconstructed data identify the state, and the literal vector conclusion follows.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 340 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Write and use the real pixelwise inner products. Let be the adjoint operator, defined by . For each nontrivial grid direction its one-dimensional formula iswith the analogous formula in for . Their sum is ; unused components and do not contribute. For , . If discrete divergence is defined, its sign convention is , as in the adjoint of a discrete forward gradient.
Define the compact convex set and its image . The image is compact and convex, hence closed, and contains zero. The finite-dimensional Euclidean duality formula , applied independently at every pixel, givesThus the penalty is the support function . Its convex conjugate is the indicator functional of a constraint set , equal to zero on and infinity elsewhere. For , the conjugate supremum is zero; for , the separation theorem supplies a direction with , and scaling that direction makes the supremum infinite.
The proximal operator is . It exists uniquely because the objective is continuous, coercive and strictly convex. The Moreau decomposition for a proper closed convex function gives . The second term is the Euclidean projection onto a convex set, so the projection residual for discrete total variation isAlternatively, the variational characterization of convex projection says exactly when for every . Hence attains the support function at , giving and the same optimality condition. This supplies a direct verification of the Moreau decomposition step in this instance.
The printed wording needs “the residual after a projection”, rather than “the projection itself”. In general this denoising map is not a projection onto any fixed closed convex set. A metric projection onto a closed convex set is idempotent, while denoising a sufficiently large jump twice shrinks it twice. Concretely, for and data with rows and , the minimizer has rows and . Reapplying the map gives rows and , so it is not idempotent. These formulas have a global certificate: take , all other dual entries zero, giving with rows and ; it saturates every positive row difference and yields the primal optimality condition. The qualification is therefore not merely a consequence of a restricted two-level ansatz.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 340 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Computing is equivalent to minimizing over , since ranges over precisely . Differentiating with the adjoint operator gives , whose Lipschitz constant is . Starting with any , for example zero, the projected-gradient dual total variation algorithm isThe block formula is the Euclidean projection onto a convex set , since it clips each two-dimensional block to a Euclidean ball of radius . Both components must be clipped together for the isotropic block mixed norm.
For the unscaled forward differences, and likewise in the other direction, so . More exactly, for the one-dimensional path difference has eigenvalues , , and the square-grid operator sums two such spectra. Thus . Finite-dimensional projected gradient descent for a convex objective with an -Lipschitz gradient converges from every feasible starting point to a dual minimizer for fixed . The theorem assumes a nonempty closed convex set, a convex differentiable objective with globally Lipschitz gradient, and a nonempty minimizer set. All hold here: is compact and convex, and is a continuous convex quadratic. Finite-dimensional convergence is of the full sequence, rather than only its objective values.
Consequently any fixed step with is safe on this grid; the more conservative is also safe. The dual minimizer need not be unique because has a null space, but and uniquely. For , the gradient penalty vanishes and , so no positive- step restriction is needed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 326 1 1 2 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Take the weak topology on the reflexive Banach space . A bounded linear operator is weak-to-weak continuous: implies for every , by its adjoint operator. The weak lower semicontinuity of the Hilbert norm therefore makes weakly sequentially lower semicontinuous.
This functional is finite everywhere and nonnegative. If it has coercivity, the direct method in the calculus of variations supplies a global minimizer . Squaring the residual does not change its global minimizers. Here the adjoint operator has codomain , since the source is a Banach space. Differentiating the squared residual along every real direction gives in the dual pairing, hence the normal equation for a linear inverse problem . HenceThe converse fails. For , , and , the datum is in the operator range, but while . Thus admissible data do not imply coercivity of the residual; an unpenalized null space already prevents it.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 335 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
To first order in , replace by and use the known incident field in the outgoing integral. The Born approximation for scalar wave scattering givesBoth the contrast term and the internal-field correction are second order for fixed geometry in the perturbative regime established in part i.
Specify the data space before taking an adjoint operator. For example, let and , where is a bounded measurement surface separated from . Define the linear operatorFor bounded incident field this is a Hilbert-Schmidt operator, hence a compact operator. The equation is , with . Other sampling geometries give corresponding data spaces and weights; the paper does not specify one. Using the usual complex inner products, its adjoint operator isThe complex conjugations are required by the adjoint operator identity, not by wave reciprocity alone.
The Landweber iteration starts from and applies gradient descent to :Each step back-propagates the data residual. The Landweber relaxation parameter controls stability, and early stopping of Landweber iteration prevents small singular values from amplifying measurement errors. For an explicitly real-valued index contrast, use the real Hilbert space structure and replace by in this update. Additional sign or support constraints require corresponding projections; none are assumed here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 340 5 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For a differentiable convex function with -Lipschitz gradient and a proper lower-semicontinuous convex function , the proximal gradient method isThe proximal operator is . To obtain an explicit iteration for discrete isotropic total variation, let with the printed zero boundary differences andThe dual is minimization of over , and the primal minimizer is . Here must be the exact adjoint operator of these differences. For example,with the analogous formula in for ; for both operators are zero. Equivalently use in the backward-difference expression, ignoring unused edge components.
The gradient of the dual objective is , with Lipschitz constant . Taking to be the indicator functional of a constraint set makes its proximal operator the Euclidean projection onto a convex set. Thus a valid explicit algorithm isThe bound follows by summing over grid differences. Finite-dimensional proximal gradient method convergence gives a dual minimizer and convergence of the recovered to the unique primal minimizer. Projection is pointwise in the dual; applying pointwise soft thresholding directly to would not compute the primal TV proximal operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ib Paper 4 10F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
For , define by . If , then in particularso . Thus is injective. Since a finite-dimensional vector space and its dual space have the same dimension, is also surjective and hence an isomorphism. This is the finite-dimensional real case of the Riesz representation theorem.
The adjoint operator of is the unique linear map satisfyingfor every and . In the stated orthonormal bases, if and denote coordinate columns, thenTherefore the matrix of is the matrix transpose .
For ,Hence . Taking orthogonal complements in the finite-dimensional space proves the image-kernel orthogonality for an adjoint
Put . For any ,This is minimized at exactly when , equivalently when . Thus the normal equation for a linear inverse problem is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 350 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The notation denotes generalized Gaussian white noise over , not a Gaussian measure supported on : the identity is not a trace-class operator there. For example, realize the observation on a suitable space of tempered distributions. Its Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian measure is . For deterministic , the stochastic pairing has normal distribution under and is the isonormal Gaussian process indexed by .
Interpret the stated maps between Sobolev spaces as bounded linear operators, as usual. In particular is bounded, so its adjoint operator is bounded on . Hence maps into , which is the property needed here. The stronger smoothing follows by Sobolev duality: boundedness of gives , and therefore . As , the shift belongs to the noise Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian measure for -almost every .
The white-noise likelihood for a square-integrable shift, obtained from the Cameron-Martin theorem for a Gaussian measure in its white-noise form, isHere is the law of . In an orthonormal basis of , with white-noise coordinates , the pairing under isFor fixed this has mean-square convergence and converges almost surely, since . The stipulated joint measurability allows the likelihood to be used under . One must not replace this expression by a finite , because white noise is not -valued. On the unbounded domain , membership of white noise in a global unweighted negative Sobolev space must not be assumed either; the stochastic pairing avoids that issue.
Let be the actual joint law. The shift formula gives with Radon-Nikodym derivative . DefineFor each fixed admissible , the moment-generating function of a normal distribution givesBy Tonelli theorem, , so for -almost every . The likelihood is finite and strictly positive for -almost every ; Fubini's theorem then gives for -almost every . The marginal observation law is and is an equivalent probability measure to .
The Bayes formula for a dominated observation model therefore definesTo verify that it is the conditional distribution, for measurable sets of unknowns and of data,Thus the posterior distribution is well defined for almost every observation under the actual data law. This is the appropriate almost-everywhere assertion supplied by Bayes' theorem; the stated assumptions do not prescribe a canonical posterior at every exceptional generalized datum.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 4 23H b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
By part (a), is a bounded bilinear form: . For each fixed , the map is consequently a bounded linear functional. The Riesz representation theorem supplies a unique vector such thatUniqueness of the representing vector makes linear, and makes it a bounded linear operator.
The coercivity assumption implieshence . Moreover, using the adjoint operator,so the same argument gives . The invertibility from lower bounds on an operator and its adjoint therefore shows that is invertible and is bounded.