Complex Ginzburg–Landau equation 2026-10-06
The complex Ginzburg–Landau equation is a nonlinear complex-amplitude evolution equation with linear and cubic terms and generally complex coefficients. The driven-condensate form has gain/loss coefficients and conservative interaction/frequency coefficients . A uniform nonzero state has number density when .
A complex Ginzburg–Landau equation describes a complex number disturbance amplitude through linear amplification, advection, complex diffusion equation terms, and often cubic amplitude saturation. A constant-coefficient example is . Here real describe transport, linear growth rate and dispersive diffusion equation terms. Omitting the cubic term gives the linear complex Ginzburg-Landau equation.
Diffusion 2026-10-06
Diffusion is the spreading of heat or material by microscopic random motion. A concentration gradient produces flux down that gradient; with uniform diffusion coefficient , conservation gives the diffusion equation . In a moving carrier, advection must also be included. Physical diffusion is a transport mechanism, distinct from the general probabilistic class of Markov diffusion.
Diffusion-controlled solute gravity current 2026-10-06
Diffusion image processing 2026-10-06
Diffusion filtering evolves an observed image signal using a diffusion equation. The heat equation gives Gaussian image smoothing, while gradient-dependent or tensor-dependent diffusion can reduce transport across image edges. A image smoothing scale, stopping rule and appropriate boundary conditions are part of the filter.
Ekman spin-down in a shallow-water layer 2026-10-06
In a thin Bottom Ekman layer, slowly evolving geostrophic flow drives upward Ekman pumping into a uniform-depth exterior layer. With , and , its balanced height satisfies . Small-scale Fourier modes decay on ; large-scale modes obey a diffusion equation with diffusivity . The balanced approximation requires .
Keplerian viscous diffusion equation 2026-10-07
Use and in the vertically averaged viscous disk equations. The radial drift is . Conservation of mass gives this nonlinear diffusion equation. It assumes the central rotation law remains fixed and excludes wind/surface torque terms.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 ib Paper 3 12D b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 71 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use a planar saline Stefan problem with upward coordinate , the initial contact at , and phase boundaries and enclosing pure ice, where . Fresh liquid occupies and brine occupies . We assume negligible bulk flow, equal constant mass density , specific heat capacity and thermal diffusivity in all regions, and zero salt content and salt transport in the ice. Equal densities remove phase-change volume flow; suppressing convection isolates the molecular-transport mechanism. Different material properties would change the numerical coefficients. Set for the common thermal conductivity and . Denote the brine salt diffusion coefficient by .
Use a linear ice liquidus, , with and the salt mass fraction. Assume the initial brine is a stable liquid, , and all concentrations considered are below the eutectic composition. Thus . These assumptions exclude independent nucleation in a supercooled brine or an eutectic system event, neither of which is specified by the initial data alone. Start with a negligible seed of ice and use local phase equilibrium without interfacial kinetics or curvature. Temperature differences may be in Celsius, since only differences enter this calculation.
WriteThe paper calls a Stefan number; it is the latent-to-sensible heat ratio, reciprocal to another common Stefan number convention. At the lower phase boundary, define and letThe liquidus relation is .
A similarity solution gives an explicit calculation of the two positions. Putand use , . The temperatures and salinities areThese error function and complementary error function profiles satisfy the heat equation and the salt diffusion equation, their far-field conditions, and the interfacial temperature conditions. The fresh-water temperature is constant because the interface and the far field are both at .
Salt conservation at the moving lower phase boundary requiresFor upward motion this is dilution by melting salt-free ice, rather than salt rejection by freezing brine. Substitution gives the dilution function for a melting saline Stefan front:For , , so the interfacial brine is fresher than the remote liquid.
The Stefan condition at the upper boundary is , since the fresh liquid has no temperature gradient. At the lower boundary it isThese signs follow from the jump in enthalpy: the upper front freezes liquid while a positive melts solid. With , they reduce toTogether with , these equations determine , and hence both positions, without discarding the salt-diffusion correction.
For the stated large latent-to-sensible heat ratio, the layer is thin relative to the thermal diffusion length. Expanding the thermal equations for givesConsequently a useful leading calculation iswhere the positive is obtained fromThe left side decreases with while the right side increases, and their values at zero and infinity guarantee a unique positive root for large . Thus this leading calculation includes the translation of the lower boundary as well as the increasing thickness.
If the scale separation also obeys , the familiar simpler result iswithThis last simplification needs the logarithmic refinement . The algebraic ordering alone should not be used to discard an arbitrarily large logarithmic correction; the preceding coupled equations remain the appropriate calculation when that refinement is unavailable. This distinction is captured by large latent heat in a freezing and melting ice layer.
The illustration uses , and . Solving the full equations gives , and . It shows the ice layer between freshwater and cold brine, with both fronts advancing upward and a strongly diluted lower liquid boundary.
Temperature-salinity trajectory from cold bulk brine to the ice liquidus and through salt-free ice to fresh water
. The phase diagram shows the spatial path from remote brine to the lower interface: temperature first changes over at almost unchanged salinity, then salinity changes over its much smaller diffusion scale at nearly constant temperature. The liquid path ends on the liquidus at ; the solid has and its temperature rises from to . The eutectic position is schematic, with in the illustration, and is not used in the calculation. A point initially in the fresh layer freezes when reaches it, cools in the ice, and later melts when reaches it. The inset indicates this temporal path in the opposite direction through the solid branch and into the liquid.
The mechanism is simultaneous upper freezing and lower melting, with net growth of the ice thickness. Cold brine accepts most of the latent heat released by upper freezing. Salt reaching the lower contact lowers its equilibrium melting temperature, and melting freshens that liquid until its liquidus is close to . The heat delivered through the ice supplies the much smaller melting demand there. The remote brine remains liquid even though it is below the pure-water melting temperature, because it lies above its own saline liquidus. Thus “cold” does not by itself decide which phase is stable. These conclusions apply while the layers remain effectively deep and the stated no-convection, pure-ice and phase-equilibrium assumptions hold.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 3 15B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Taking the spatial Fourier transform of the diffusion equation gives and . Hence . Fourier inversion and the Gaussian transform from part (a), or direct evaluation of the inverse Gaussian integral, give the heat kernelSubstituting the integral for and interchanging absolutely integrable terms produces the convolution solutionFor the stated nonnegative compactly supported data, understood to be nonzero on a set of positive measure, the kernel is strictly positive everywhere. Therefore for every real and every . Property P holds: diffusion has infinite propagation speed. The distant value can be extremely small, but is not zero. For continuous initial data, any nontrivial nonnegative automatically has the required positive-measure set.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 318 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Under the first-order smoothing approximation, neglect the fluctuating product in the resistive induction equation while retaining its contribution to the mean electromotive force. Since the test field is constant and the velocity is a solenoidal vector field, the fluctuation equation isLet , , and . For each Fourier mode, the diffusion equation becomes a scalar linear relaxation equation applied to each vector component. Take its long-time periodic response, with . For the first mode,while for the second,Thus the complex response coefficients areThey giveAn arbitrary initial fluctuation also contains a homogeneous diffusive transient. In the forced modes this is ; more general initial modes also diffuse. The displayed harmonic expression is the periodic particular solution after those transients, not the most general solution at finite time. The constants and the factors of are unchanged by taking the final real part.
To justify the helicity relation, write with real vectors. Solenoidality gives . Their cross product is parallel to , andThis is the helicity vector of a solenoidal Fourier mode. In these conventions the spatially averaged kinetic helicity density of is ; the sign is set by the specified cross-product order.
For equal wavevectors, spatial averaging of two real harmonic fields givesTime averaging gives another factor , because and the mixed temporal average is zero. Consequently each diagonal mode contributes to the mean-field electromotive forceDistinct modes with have no spatially averaged cross term. The printed condition also permits the opposite-wavevector case. The possible cross terms still cancel after time averaging: the out-of-phase response coefficients are and , while integration by parts gives for the real spatial fields. This handles all the distinct wavevectors allowed by the question, assuming the usual periodic-cell or whole-space spatial average.
Thus the alpha tensor isBoth averaging factors matter. The alpha tensor is real and symmetric, and this contribution vanishes when the mode kinetic helicity densities vanish.
For the two perpendicular wavevectors and common , put . ThenMean-field dynamo action is possible when and sufficiently long mean-field wavelengths are allowed. The missing entry does not prevent an alpha-squared dynamo. Indeed a slowly varying mean magnetic field transverse to , with dependence , obeysThe two growth rates are , so the larger is positive if . This supplies a brief constructive reason; scale separation also requires . A spatially uniform test field itself has zero curl of its mean-field electromotive force and does not grow. If , or if boundary conditions exclude all unstable long wavelengths, this particular alpha effect does not yield growth. The conclusion concerns the stated first-order smoothing approximation; no uncomputed turbulent-diffusion correction is assumed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 321 1 a iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For the finite-mass similarity solution above, the total disk mass isSubstitute , so and . This givesThe requested linear increase of mass is therefore correct. It is supplied by the infinite-radius boundary, rather than by a source-free isolated finite disk. The inward mass accretion rate iswhich tends to zero at the origin and to at infinity.
For Keplerian rotation, the specific angular momentum is . The total disk angular momentum would beThis integral diverges at , corresponding to infinite radius. There is no finite constant total angular momentum for the nonzero printed similarity solution. The seemingly time-independent last expression is an infinite quantity; it cannot prove a finite conservation law.
The problem remains visible under a cutoff. With , write , where and is the exponential integral. ThenEven the finite change after subtracting a common logarithmic divergence is not zero. Direct integration of the disk diffusion equation gives the boundary identityfor this profile the outer expression has a nonzero limit, giving the same finite change rate. An inner zero torque alone does not impose zero outer angular-momentum flux.
More generally, the printed family can have finite angular momentum at both ends only if and , hence it is trivial. Thus the request for a nonzero finite constant is incompatible with the stated viscosity exponent, similarity ansatz and infinite radial domain. A physical finite-domain or altered similarity problem would need different boundary data or assumptions; silently assigning a finite value to the divergent integral does not repair it.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 321 1 a ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let with . The derivatives of this similarity solution areThe first-derivative terms cancel in the dimensionless diffusion equation, leaving for . ThusAt the inner boundary , . Interpreting the named variable as vanishing there sets . Even if only the true viscous torque in an accretion disk is required to vanish, a nonzero would give infinite total mass near ; finite mass again selects . With nonnegative surface density, choose ; its value fixes the initial mass normalization. ThereforeThe surface density vanishes exponentially at the origin and has an tail at infinity. Its peak occurs at , with . The peak moves inward and grows as time increases.
Surface-density profiles of the printed similarity solution at two times, showing an inward-moving growing peak and the outer power-law tail
. The plot uses and shows the actual surface density, with logarithmic radius to resolve both peaks. The later profile is larger at every fixed radius. Its total mass is finite; its total angular momentum is not, as the next calculation establishes.


