Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 216 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let and . Since , . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality applied to the centered sums givesDivide by . The first term is at most , while part (b) and give a limsup of at most for the second. Squaring provesThis argument also covers ; it does not require independence between the discarded prefix and the retained path. The same chain-dependent as in part (b) suffices.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 308 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
There is an exact rational-map description of sigma-model lumps and a restricted variational rational-map description of Skyrmions. The first follows from a Bogomolny equation; the second separates angular and radial dependence in a field that generally does not saturate a Bogomolny bound.
For the exact example, take the two-dimensional O3 nonlinear sigma model with a unit field , energy , and a fixed limit at infinity. Regular fields then have a one-point compactification to maps . Choose the orientation so that the stereographic fieldhas positive charge when it is holomorphic. Equivalently, this is the CP1 nonlinear sigma model since the target sphere is the complex projective line. Its energy and topological charge areSubtracting gives , so for ,The Cauchy-Riemann equations therefore give the minimal-energy fields. A holomorphic map from the compactified domain Riemann sphere to the target Riemann sphere is a rational map , with common polynomial factors cancelled. Its degree of a rational map of the Riemann sphere is . Poles of are coordinate singularities, not singularities of . For instance, with is an exact unit lump with energy , arbitrary centre , and scale . Its density is , whose plane integral is . For negative charge use antiholomorphic maps. Scale invariance allows arbitrarily small lumps and does not by itself prevent a singular concentration limit in the time-dependent theory.
The local angular geometry of any degree- rational map is measured by its angular Jacobian of a rational map,For , the Wronskian of a rational map isAt ordinary finite points its zeros mark ramification points of a holomorphic map, where the angular density vanishes. At a pole use as the target coordinate, and at infinity use as the domain coordinate. A pole of order is ramified by . The Riemann-Hurwitz formula counts total ramification , including infinity, even if the affine Wronskian has smaller degree. For , accounts for zeros at zero; the reciprocal coordinate shows the other at infinity.
For the approximate example, the rational map approximation for Skyrmions uses spherical radius , angular stereographic projection coordinate , andThe Pauli matrices make this an SU(2) group-valued field. The boundary conditions give a continuous centre and the vacuum value at infinity; the profile must also make the energy finite. Angular degree and radial winding factorize to giveAt radii with nonzero , the angular baryon number density is proportional to . Thus the Wronskian of a rational map locates zero-density directions and reveals the holes or face directions in shell-like Skyrmion configurations.
In dimensionless Skyrme model units, insert this ansatz into the quadratic and quartic derivative energies. The angular terms integrate to or to the angular integral in the rational map approximation,First minimize over degree- maps, then solve the radial variational equationwith the stated boundary conditions. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives because has sphere average . For an isometric map such as has , , and reduces to the Skyrmion hedgehog ansatz; its profile still requires solving the radial equation. For general , angular and radial separation restrict the allowed fields. The minimum within this class is an upper bound on the full sector minimum, not a claim that every exact Skyrmion has this separated form. The original construction is Houghton, Manton and Sutcliffe's arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9705151.
A rotational symmetry of a rational map must satisfy , where are the domain and target rotations written as Möbius transformations from SU(2) matrices. Since a target rotation is an isometry, this identity implies . For , , giving axial spatial symmetry accompanied by an internal rotation. This explains the axial symmetry of the degree-two toroidal ansatz.
A useful degree-four example isIts finite ramification directions are , with the sixth at infinity. They are the six coordinate-axis directions under stereographic projection, so they are the face normals of a cube. The full map has octahedral rotational equivariance: for example , and the cyclic-axis generator obeys . These generate the cube's rotational group and give a cubic angular density. The associated profile then produces the familiar cubic charge-four approximation. Symmetry of the Wronskian is a useful necessary diagnostic but is not sufficient: replacing this map by , , leaves the same ramification directions, while the identity under becomes , whose target transformation is a sphere rotation only when . Equivariance of the entire rational map, rather than symmetry of its critical-point set alone, determines the physical rotational symmetry.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 326 2 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write the residual of an inverse problem as . The iteration can be rearranged asApplying gives . Since is a positive operator, its resolvent operator has operator norm at most one. HenceMore explicitly, taking the inner product of the residual equation with givesThis directly proves the same monotonicity by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, including the case . An unresolvable data component in remains unchanged.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 326 2 2 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Assume , as in the exact-solution setting used for the preceding source condition for quadratic regularization. Let , , and . Then , and expanding the two squared errors givesThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality supplies the last line. Thus while the residual remains at least the noise bound,Compatibility of the exact data is essential. If only is retained, let , , , and . The minimum-norm least-squares solution is zero, but the first iterate is and its residual norm is . Its error has increased from zero. Thus the original assertion uses the implicit exact-data assumption from part (c), and is false without it.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 326 3 2 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write for the indicator functional of a constraint set and . ThenBoth terms are convex, hence their infimal convolution is the convex squared distance to a convex set. The closest point theorem in a Hilbert space supplies the unique metric projection onto a closed convex set and gives .
Identify the Hilbert space with its dual space using the Riesz representation theorem. Completing the square yields , while is the support function. The conjugate of the squared distance to a convex set is thereforeFor the closed unit ball, the metric projection onto a closed convex set is if , and otherwise. ThereforeThe last equality uses the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality to compute the unit ball's support function, attained in the direction of when .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 340 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let be the orthogonal projection onto . The dilation property and the orthonormal basis property give the orthonormal basis of . The periodized nonnegative functionhas period one and , by Tonelli theorem. For a function with compact support contained in a bounded interval , Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the Parseval identity giveas . The last step uses absolute continuity of the integral of a locally function, since the interval's length tends to zero. If , thenFunctions with compact support are dense in , so . ConsequentlyThis proof needs neither the density axiom nor any compact support assumption on the scaling function.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 341 5 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Work in the real zero-boundary Sobolev space , whose members have square-integrable weak derivatives and zero endpoint trace. Define the bounded bilinear form and linear functionalThe weak formulation is to find with for every . Integration by parts recovers the differential equation for a smooth solution; conversely, this identity is the definition of its weak solution.
Use the full norm. The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives and . Also , so is a coercive bilinear form with constant one. The Lax-Milgram theorem states that a bounded, coercive bilinear form on a real Hilbert space determines a unique weak solution for every bounded linear functional. It therefore applies here.
The equivalent minimization problem isIf is the weak solution, symmetry and giveThis is positive unless , proving a unique global minimizer. Conversely, differentiating at gives the weak identity. Thus the unique energy minimizer is exactly the unique weak solution. As a check, the classical representative isIt satisfies both endpoint conditions and .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 2 26J a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 4 23F b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
LetThe fundamental theorem of calculus and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality giveThus the one-half Hölder seminorm is at most .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 4 23F d Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Subtracting the global weighted mean from leaves its derivative unchanged, so it suffices to assumeWrite , choose , and putThe weighted mean of on isBy the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality,Part (c), applied on , therefore gives for Part (a) gives independently
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 4 29K c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Differentiating twice gives the Hessian matrixFor every vector ,Thus the Hessian is a negative semidefinite matrix, andEquivalently, with , its determinant isby the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, while both diagonal entries are nonpositive.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 105 1 a Solution 2026-10-03
Write . Since has arithmetic mean zero,and the pairwise-difference identity givesFirst take smooth. Join to by changing one coordinate at a time and apply the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality:For a one-dimensional slice , the fundamental theorem of calculus yieldsIntegrating the th summand over therefore gives at most . HenceThe density of smooth functions in a Sobolev space extends the estimate to every . Thus
On the product Hilbert space defineandThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality makes and bounded. On the diagonal,The Poincare inequality controls by , andThe displayed diagonal value therefore controls the full product norm, so is coercive. The Lax-Milgram theorem now gives exactly one pair satisfying the weak identities. Hence a unique weak solution exists for every .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 105 4 b Solution 2026-10-03
Write , with repeated indices summed. The triangle inequality and the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality over the coefficient pairs giveChooseThen the strict coefficient bound in the question implies
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 109 4 Solution 2026-10-03
A multiset of subsets of is a uniform cover of multiplicity when each coordinate occurs in exactly members. The uniform covers theorem states that every Euclidean body satisfieswhere is the coordinate projection of a Euclidean body onto the coordinates in .
We prove it by induction on . Split the cover into , whose members omit , and , whose members contain . Exactly members lie in . For a last-coordinate value , let be the corresponding slice. Removing from the members of and retaining the members of gives a -uniform cover of . The inductive hypothesis and Fubini's theorem giveApply Hölder's inequality to the factors in the integral. Sincewe obtain , which is the result after taking the th power. The one-dimensional base case is immediate.
The Bollobas--Thomason box theorem states that for every body there is an axis-parallel box such thatAn irreducible uniform cover cannot be decomposed into two smaller uniform covers. There are only finitely many such covers of : encode a cover by its multiplicity vector in and apply the Dickson lemma.
Choose a componentwise minimal positive array satisfyingfor every irreducible -uniform cover , together withThe actual projection volumes are feasible by the uniform covers theorem, and finiteness gives a minimal array. Every uniform cover is a disjoint union of irreducible ones, so its cover inequality also holds for this array.
Minimality implies that, for each coordinate , some tight uniform-cover inequality can be chosen whose cover contains the singleton . Indeed, either such an inequality already blocks decreasing , or a tight product inequality does; in the latter case take a tight cover containing and replace that occurrence of by its singleton coordinates. Let these tight covers be , of multiplicities , and let . Their multiset union is a -uniform cover. Removing one copy of every singleton leaves a -uniform cover, so comparison of its cover inequality with the product of all the tight equalities yieldsThe singleton cover gives the reverse inequality, henceFor any , the one-uniform cover consisting of and the singletons for now gives . The defining product inequality gives the reverse bound. Thus all these quantities are equal. Taking the side lengths of to be proves the theorem.
Finally suppose that the proper body satisfiesThis is equality in the three-dimensional Loomis--Whitney inequality. In its proof, equality must hold in both applications of Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Their equality conditions force the three projection indicators to factor through one-dimensional measurable sets , and forceup to a set of Lebesgue measure zero; this is Equality in the three-dimensional Loomis--Whitney inequality.
Because is connected, each one-coordinate projection is connected and hence is an interval. Because is a finite union of positive-volume axis-parallel boxes, a proper difference between and the product of those three intervals would contain a positive-volume rectangular cell in a common finite subdivision. That would contradict equality up to measure zero. Consequently the equality is exact and
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 147 1 i Solution 2026-10-03
For , let be the number of vertices of adjacent to both. The required number of ordered quadruples isThe Cauchy-Schwarz inequality first givesReverse the order of counting. A vertex contributes ordered pairs, so a second application of Cauchy-Schwarz and the assumed edge density of a bipartite graph giveTherefore the bipartite four-cycle count is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 147 2 Solution 2026-10-03
Let and let be the balanced indicator function, extended by zero to the integers. For finitely supported functions define the linear configuration countSince has no nonconstant three-term arithmetic progression, . On the other hand, . Hence, once is sufficiently large in terms of ,for an absolute .
Use the unnormalized Fourier transform on . Telescoping writes the preceding difference asLet . The Fourier-integral formula for , followed by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality and the Parseval identity, bounds these three terms respectively byThey are all at most , sofor an absolute . Choose with .
By the Dirichlet approximation theorem, some integer satisfies . Choose a sufficiently small absolute multiple of . Partition each residue-class progression of common difference into progressions whose lengths lie between and ; for sufficiently large , short final pieces can be joined to the preceding piece. On each , the linear phase varies by at most . Choosing small enough compared with therefore yieldsThe sums over all cells add to , so their positive parts total half their absolute values. At least one consequently satisfiesThis is the Roth density-increment step, and it giveswith and depending only on .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 147 3 ii Solution 2026-10-03
Give the uniform probability measure and let be the indicator function of the edge set. For partitions and , define the energyBecause conditional expectation is an orthogonal projection in L2 space, .
Suppose the pair of partitions is not -regular. For each irregular choose witnesses and withRefine each by all sets and each by all sets . If the old partitions have cells, the refined ones have at most cells.
The Pythagorean theorem for the two nested conditional-expectation projections givesInside an irregular , the witness rectangle occupies at least an proportion and the mean of the displayed difference over it has magnitude greater than . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality therefore gives an energy gain greater thanfrom that pair. Since irregular pairs have total weight greater than , the complete refinement raises the energy by more than .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 205 5 Solution 2026-10-03
Put and let lie in the compatibility cone. ThenSubtracting this from the defining lower bound for and taking the infimum gives the stability of a compatibility constant under entrywise perturbation:
A centered random variable is a sub-Gaussian random variable with parameter whenThe Chernoff bound gives .
For fixed , the variablesare independent, centered, and lie in , hence are sub-Gaussian with parameter . Their mean is sub-Gaussian with parameter , soA union bound over at most pairs with yields
The minimum-eigenvalue bound and Cauchy-Schwarz inequality implyso . A sufficient uniform condition isIndeed, on the concentration event the entrywise error is at most for every . The perturbation result then gives simultaneously, with probability at least .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 215 4 a Solution 2026-10-03
Let be a finite reversible Markov chain with stationary distribution , and write for an oriented transition edge . For every ordered pair choose a directed path from to using positive-capacity edges, and define the congestionThen the Canonical paths comparison theorem gives the Poincare inequalityfor every real function , and hence the spectral gap is at least .
Indeed,Write each difference as the sum of edge differences along and apply Cauchy-Schwarz inequality:Interchanging the pair and edge sums, then applying the definition of , bounds the result by