Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 iii Paper 7 4 ii Solution 2026-10-14
Write . First we prove decay of coefficients of an almost-everywhere convergent trigonometric series rather than assuming the series can be integrated term by term. For , tends to zero outside the finite set . Suppose does not tend to zero, and choose a subsequence with . Then and almost everywhere. The dominated convergence theorem givesorthogonality of the two distinct Fourier modes instead makes the integral , a contradiction. Thus .
Define on the real line the twice-integrated continuous functionThe series has both absolute convergence and uniform convergence because its coefficients are bounded. Its symmetric second quotient is therefore, for nonzero ,We next prove that this tends to zero whenever , lifted periodically to the line. Let and for , so the partial sums of the are exactly . Put and . Summation by parts givesThe boundary term vanishes because is bounded and for fixed nonzero . MoreoverIndeed near zero and for . Each fixed weight difference tends to zero as . Splitting the last series at an index beyond which therefore bounds its upper limit by . Letting proves the claimed zero second quotient. This explicitly proves the needed Riemann summation of a convergent trigonometric series, despite the oscillations in its weights.
We also need the elementary fact that a continuous function with zero symmetric second derivative at every interior point of an interval is affine. For a real-valued function, subtract its endpoint chord on any compact subinterval . If the difference were positive somewhere, adding for sufficiently small would retain a positive maximum at an interior point. At that maximum each symmetric second difference is nonpositive, while its quotient tends to , a contradiction. Thus the function lies below its chord. Apply the argument to its negative to get the reverse inequality. Applying this to real and imaginary parts proves the complex-valued case as well. This establishes that vanishing symmetric second derivative forces an affine function. Hence is an affine function on each open interval between the finitely many exceptional points in any period.
It remains to exclude corners at those points. Multiplying the formula for the second quotient by , and using and the evenness of , givesfor every , by the infinite-series version of part (i), since . continuity extends the adjacent affine pieces to each exceptional point, and the fact that symmetric second differences detect an affine corner makes their slopes and intercepts agree. Thus is globally an affine function on the real line.
The periodic part of its definition gives . An affine function has constant increments, so . The resulting is both an affine function and a periodic function, hence constant. Finally, absolute uniform convergence justifies integrating its defining series against , and for the resulting Fourier coefficient is . A constant has all these coefficients zero. Therefore , proving uniqueness of a trigonometric series outside a finite set with all exceptional points accounted for.