Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ib Paper 2 16A Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Put in the Laplace equation in cylindrical coordinates. Separation of variables first gives ; -periodicity forces , with angular factors (only the constant for ). Taking givesFor the separated modes are thereforeHere and are the Bessel function of the first kind and the Bessel function of the second kind. For the opposite sign , the modes instead involve , the modified Bessel functions, paired with . At zero separation constant use and for , or for . Superpositions over the integer angular orders and appropriate sums or integrals over the separation parameter give the general separated expansion; boundary conditions select its spectrum and coefficients. Regularity at the axis excludes terms.
For the specified decaying side data, bounded separated modes use . A particular solution isAll three denominators are nonzero. Each term satisfies the radial Bessel differential equation, is regular at the axis and bounded for , and substitution at gives the stated side values. The modes behave as at the axis, so their apparent angular dependence there causes no singularity.
There is an actual nonuniqueness in the printed problem: no values are specified at . If is the first positive zero of , then for every real ,is another bounded solution with the same side values. It remains smooth at the axis and even decays as . This explicitly proves that side boundary data do not determine a bounded harmonic function in a half-cylinder. Thus the boxed expression supplies a bounded solution; the phrase “the bounded solution” is not justified without an additional base boundary condition. The PDF has , whereas the TeX transcription displays .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 335 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Interpret the longitudinal Dirac delta function as the Markov approximation for a random medium. The two arguments on the left of the printed covariance must be and . The transverse covariance kernel is . Here statistical isotropy means transverse isotropy: a medium with a distinguished longitudinal white noise direction and a smooth transverse covariance is not literally isotropic in all three directions. Also, ideal Gaussian white noise replaces the original finite-variance field; it cannot simultaneously satisfy a pointwise normalization .
Write for the covariance strength of the refractive index fluctuations. Define the transverse power spectrum using the unnormalized forward Fourier transform printed in equation 3:This is the spectrum of the fluctuations, excluding the deterministic mean index. Equivalently it is the zero-longitudinal-frequency slice of the three-dimensional fluctuation spectrum before the Markov approximation. The angular integral is , where is the Bessel function of the first kind. Consequently Fourier inversion and the Hankel transform giveThe printed equations 4 and 5 omit these reciprocal factors, and the left-hand side of equation 5 should depend on . They are instead a consistent order-zero Hankel transform pair if their denotes .
Using , the mean-field solution in the Fourier transform convention isHere is the Fresnel propagator. Finiteness of the integral ensures a finite screen wave phase variance. If the quoted power spectrum uses the self-reciprocal Hankel transform convention, the same result readsThese formulas describe identical media when ; assigning the same numerical function to both spectral conventions describes different covariance strengths.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 336 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The Bessel function of the first kind has at zero, while the Bessel function of the second kind has . Since , these yield a constant and a linear function of , explaining the late-time behavior. At large positive ,Matching to fixes and . The large- and small-argument asymptotic expansions thereby connect the oscillatory WKB approximation to the nonoscillatory late-time solution through one Bessel transition for an exponentially decaying oscillator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 336 3 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
First remove the small damping term by writingThe transformed linear ordinary differential equation isThe leading frequency is . Its WKB approximation has amplitude and phase . The initial conditions selectThis leading expression has and . Its WKB approximation for a slowly varying oscillator requires , so it fails around .
To resolve the Bessel transition for an exponentially decaying oscillator, shift to , put and rescale . The exact transformed equation isFor fixed its leading form is . The substitution turns it into the order-zero Bessel differential equation, so . In the overlap , matching the large-argument Bessel functions to gives, with ,Here and are the Bessel function of the first kind and Bessel function of the second kind; the symbol in this question is unrelated to the leading inner function in the preceding question.
At late times , the small-argument expansions givewhere is the Euler--Mascheroni constant. The solution becomes asymptotically linear rather than maintaining the exponentially growing WKB envelope. Its leading late-time slope is . These are leading asymptotic coefficients as : near a zero of , higher-order phase corrections determine the small actual slope. The formula is not an absolute-error estimate uniform to arbitrarily late times. The exact late slope of an exponentially damped oscillator, obtained from a Kummer function and a Wronskian, provides a separate check even near those exceptional phases.
In the unit half-cylinder , specifying only the curved-side boundary values does not determine a bounded harmonic function. The displayed nonzero function, where is a positive zero of the Bessel function of the first kind , is regular at the axis, bounded, harmonic, and zero on . It may be added to any particular solution without changing the side data, and even decays at infinity. Boundary information at the base is still required for uniqueness.
Spherical Bessel function 2026-10-05
The spherical Bessel functions solve the radial wave equation in three dimensions. In particular,The apparent singularity at the origin is removable, as follows from the power series of the Bessel function of the first kind.