Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 303 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
At the Gaussian fixed point, , so all three quartic couplings have engineering dimension . ThusTake and , as in the perturbative epsilon expansion. Define , , . The renormalization-group fixed point equations becomeIf , each of is independently or , giving four renormalization-group fixed points. If , subtracting the first two equations givesThe branch forces ; inserting this in the first equation yields a repeated root . Hence every nonzero- solution has . Then , andhas roots and . The complete list of six coupled Ising fixed points near four dimensions, in coordinates , isThe internal symmetries of these renormalization-group fixed points are:
- The Gaussian fixed point has an orthogonal group acting on the two identical free massless fields.
- is one Ising model Wilson-Fisher fixed point and one free field. Its linear internal symmetry is ; the two sectors cannot be exchanged. The point has the same symmetry with the roles reversed.
- describes two identical decoupled Ising models. It additionally permits field exchange, giving , the eight-element dihedral group .
- has . Its interaction is , so it is the O(N) model Wilson-Fisher fixed point with and symmetry.
- has . Its symmetry is again the eight-element dihedral group , not .
The last point displays the field-rotation equivalence of decoupled Ising theories. With the orthogonal transformation ,It is the same pair of decoupled Ising models written in fields rotated by , but remains a distinct coordinate solution of the stated renormalization-group beta functions. Here denotes the dihedral group of order eight; an alternative convention calls it . We have described linear internal transformations preserving the gradient energy; free massless sectors also have constant scalar-field shift symmetries. At , the six coordinates coalesce at the Gaussian fixed point.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ia Paper 3 6D b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 1 18F c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
The actions on the ordered pair satisfyThus every element of has the form or for , so . Their actions areBecause are algebraically independent elements over , these eight substitutions are distinct. Henceand the presentation identifies with the dihedral group .
PutBoth generators and fix and , so for ,The elements and are the two roots ofso . Adjoining first and then takes at most two quadratic extensions, and the tower law givesPart (b) gives . Since , another use of the tower law givesAll inequalities are equalities and . Thereforethe dihedral fixed field of a two-variable rational function field.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ia Paper 2 6E b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
For the rotation group , the identity fixes all colorings. Because five is prime, each of the four nonidentity rotations is a single five-cycle and fixes exactly the constant colorings. Burnside lemma therefore gives the number of coloring necklaces
For the dihedral group , the five reflections each fix one vertex and interchange two pairs of vertices, so each fixes colorings. Adding these to the identity and rotation contributions gives the number of coloring bracelets
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 2 23F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
In local coordinates centred at and , a nonconstant rational map has the formThe point is a ramification point of a holomorphic map when its ramification index of a holomorphic map satisfies . A branch value of a holomorphic map, also called a branch point in the target, is a value of some ramification point.
Let be the finite set of branch values and put . For every , all points of have local degree one, so the holomorphic inverse function theorem supplies disjoint neighbourhoods on which is biholomorphic. Compactness of the fibre lets their target neighbourhoods be intersected to one evenly covered neighbourhood of . Henceis an unramified covering map. Here the displayed restriction requires ; if “ramification point” is reserved only for points with , then the source deletion must be written .
The Monodromy theorem says that analytic continuations along endpoint-fixed homotopic paths have the same terminal germ. Equivalently here, the path lifting theorem lifts a loop based at from each point of ; taking the endpoint of each lift permutes that fibre. The permutation depends only on , giving the monodromy group of a covering.
For the stated function, make the Möbius change of coordinateThenThe critical points are , with branch valuesA loop around interchanges the two roots born from , so its branch cycle is a transposition. A loop around simultaneously interchanges the two pairs that collide there, so its branch cycle is a product of two disjoint transpositions. With a suitable labelling these areThey generate a transitive group of order eight; their product is a four-cycle. Therefore the full monodromy group isthe dihedral group in its action on the four vertices of a square.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ib Paper 2 11E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The Poincare half-plane model iswith the orientation inherited from the complex plane. Forone hasThese identities show directly that . The map is holomorphic with nonzero derivative, so it preserves orientation. The matrices and induce the same map, giving the action of PSL2(R).
Conversely, let be an orientation-preserving isometry. The PSL2(R) action is transitive on , so compose with an element taking back to . The resulting isometry fixes and acts on by an orientation-preserving orthogonal map, hence a rotation. The stabilizer of in PSL2(R),realizes every such tangent rotation. An isometry is determined by its value and differential at one point because it preserves geodesics and the exponential map. Thus the composed isometry belongs to PSL2(R), and so does .
The map is an orientation-reversing isometry. Composing any orientation-reversing isometry with gives an orientation-preserving one, so
A hyperbolic line is a vertical Euclidean line or a semicircle orthogonal to the real axis. Its hyperbolic reflection is the unique orientation-reversing isometry that fixes every point of . If meet at angle , thenis the hyperbolic rotation about through angle . The generators satisfyIf in lowest terms, then has order and the generated group is the finite dihedral group of order . If is irrational, has infinite order and the generated group is the infinite dihedral group. In the degenerate case , the group has order two.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ia Paper 1 6B a ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Direct multiplication givesHenceThis is the defining conjugation relation between a rotation and reflection in a dihedral group.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ia Paper 1 6B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The relationsimply . Moving every occurrence of to the left and reducing exponents therefore puts every word into one of the normal formsExplicitly, with ,andThe rotations are distinct. The reflected matrices are also distinct, and no reflected matrix equals a rotation because their determinants are and , respectively. Hence there are exactlymatrices, forming the dihedral group.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ii Paper 2 19H Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
Irreducible degrees divide the order of a finite -group and satisfyThe number of linear characters is . For a nontrivial finite -group this is at least unless the group is abelian, and every nonlinear degree is at least . A degree constituent is therefore impossible in the nonabelian case. If there are linear and degree-two characters, thenThus the only degree collections arewith respectively .
For , take , where
and
. On the five classesthe four linear characters of , indexed by
, and its degree-two character areThe ten classes of are and . Its full table consists ofwhere runs over the above five rows and
runs over the two characters of . This explicitly gives eight linear and two degree-two rows.
and
. On the five classesthe four linear characters of , indexed by
, and its degree-two character areThe ten classes of are and . Its full table consists ofwhere runs over the above five rows and
runs over the two characters of . This explicitly gives eight linear and two degree-two rows.
For , take the dihedral groupOrder its seven classes asThe four linear rows areThe three degree-two rows, for , areThe row norms and mutual inner products, weighted by the displayed class sizes, verify irreducibility and completeness.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 ii Paper 3 23F c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Let and define Möbius transformationsThey satisfyand the maps and are distinct. They therefore give a faithful action of the dihedral group on the Riemann sphere.
The rational functionis invariant under both and , so it is constant on every orbit. Conversely, for nonzero finite , put and . Equality of the function values givesIf , then for some . If , then for some . Finally, zero and infinity both map to infinity and are interchanged by . HenceThis is the orbit-separating invariant for the standard dihedral action on the Riemann sphere.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 114 5 Solution Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-10-03
For unit vectors, the defining inequality for is equivalent to . WriteThen , sois a homeomorphism . Replacing by gives the same description of . Their intersection isthe unit tangent bundle, equivalently a Stiefel manifold. Since evaluates to , its Gysin sequence gives the cohomology of the unit tangent bundle of an even-dimensional sphere:Every product of positive-degree classes vanishes.
Let consist of the eight signed permutations of the two factors:It is the group of signed permutation matrices in dimension two, hence isomorphic to the dihedral group , and every element preserves the equation . If generate from the two sphere factors, these maps act by the corresponding signed permutation matrix, because the antipodal map of the even-dimensional sphere has degree . The eight actions are distinct, so only the identity can be homotopic to .
Every element of acts trivially on . The degree- group is , so its automorphism is forced to be the identity. On the top class, regard as the Stiefel manifold of two-frames. The signed permutations are the right action of . The determinant-one component is connected, while a determinant-minus-one element is homotopic within that component to , the antipodal map on the fibers. That map has degree , so the top class is also fixed.
The subgroup preserving iswhere , , and . It consists exactly of the elements with . Under the deformation retraction onto the diagonal, and act as the identity, while and act as the antipodal map. They therefore act on by , respectively.
The Thom isomorphism theorem identifies with a degree- shift of . On the Thom class in degree , the same four elements act by : the factor swap reverses each normal vector, which preserves the orientation because the normal rank is even, while the simultaneous antipodal map reverses the oriented tangent fiber. On the degree- relative class every element acts by , since the base and fiber signs for the last two elements cancel.
When , . Every signed permutation of extends, after sending the third frame vector to the required sign, to right multiplication by an element of . Since is path-connected, every right translation is homotopic to the identity. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 1 18I c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Put . The roots of are , so its splitting field isThe polynomial is irreducible over by the Eisenstein criterion at , and does not contain . The tower law for field extensions therefore gives .
Define automorphismsThey satisfy and . The eight maps and are distinct, so they exhaust the Galois group. Hencethe dihedral group of order eight.
The Galois correspondence gives all intermediate fields. The full list, with a single generator for each field, isFor example, has stabilizer , and has stabilizer ; the other entries follow similarly. Also has trivial stabilizer, so its orbit has eight elements and the primitive element theorem conclusion holds explicitly.
Finally, the normal subextension criterion says that normal intermediate fields correspond exactly to normal subgroups. In these are , , the two index-two Klein four-groups, , and , which gives exactly the “yes” rows above. This is the subfields of the splitting field of x to the fourth minus seven lattice.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 1 19H Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
A complex representation of a finite group is a homomorphismfor a finite-dimensional complex vector space . It is an irreducible representation when its only invariant subspaces are and , and its degree is . Two representations are isomorphic when there is an invertible linear map intertwining their -actions.
Write the dihedral group asIn an irreducible representation choose an eigenvector of , which is possible because . If its eigenvalue is , thenThus is invariant under both and . Irreducibility forces , proving as in irreducible complex representations of a finite dihedral group.
Let . Besides the one-dimensional representations described below, define for each indicated These matrices satisfy the defining relations. Since , the only one-dimensional -invariant subspaces are the two coordinate axes, and interchanges them. Hence is irreducible. Their characters satisfywhose values are distinct in the ranges below, so the are pairwise nonisomorphic. This is the family of two-dimensional representations of a finite dihedral group.
If is odd, a one-dimensional character must send to a scalar satisfying and . Thus , while may independently map to or . These give two one-dimensional irreducibles. Takinggives two-dimensional irreducibles, for a total of
If is even, may map to either or , and again may map independently to either sign. This gives four pairwise nonisomorphic one-dimensional irreducibles. Takinggives two-dimensional irreducibles, for a total ofDifferent dimensions distinguish the one- and two-dimensional families, completing the required construction and justification.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 102 4 iv Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
On , each is reflection in the line . The product of two plane reflections is a rotation. If is the oriented angle from to , thenrotates through modulo .
If this rotation has order , conjugation by either reflection inverts it. Henceis a dihedral group, with rotational subgroup .
For the simple-root angles from part ii, the rotation orders and Weyl groups areThese are the rank-two Weyl groups.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 111 4 a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The Coxeter number is the order of a Coxeter element. In the stated families the values areHere is the dihedral group of order , is the symmetric group, is the signed symmetric group, and is the even signed symmetric group.
The six-element dihedral group generated by the displayed rotations already forces every invariant second-rank tensor to have the same form as an axially invariant second-rank tensor. The axial threefold rotation eliminates mixed entries and leaves only a planar scalar plus a planar antisymmetric part; the transverse half-turn eliminates the latter. No smaller finite subgroup suffices: cyclic rotation groups retain an axial antisymmetric tensor, while a four-element noncyclic rotation group retains arbitrary diagonal tensors along its three mutually perpendicular half-turn axes.
Subfields of the splitting field of x to the fourth minus seven Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Put and . The dihedral group acts byThe ten subgroups and their fixed fields areThe normal subgroups are , , the two displayed Klein four-groups, , and .
A group generated by two involutions is dihedral in the extended convention allowing and the infinite dihedral group. If , put , ; then . Conversely, from the inversion relation, and square to the identity and generate. If , the group is and the same nonidentity element is used twice. Exact order two, rather than merely a square equal to the identity, requires this exceptional case. This convention extends the usual finite dihedral group definition.