If the form the eigenbasis of , thenThe retained functional principal component scores are therefore uncorrelated with every omitted score, so . The least-squares estimates of are consistent despite truncation. Fixed still estimates only the projection ; consistency for the complete function requires the truncation level to increase and the tail error to vanish.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 324 1 b Solution Created 2026-09-25 Updated 2026-10-03
A shift-invariant basis is a common eigenbasis of all cyclic shift operators . For the displayed Fourier states, orthonormality follows from the root-of-unity filter:There are vectors in this orthonormal set in the -dimensional Hilbert space, so they form a basis. Reindexing the finite sum givesThus every is simultaneously an eigenvector of every shift, with eigenvalue for .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 324 4 a Solution 2026-09-25
First construct a controlled unitary gate from the uncontrolled oracle. Keep the supplied in a reference register. Controlled on an extra qubit, swap the data and reference registers, query on the register that contains in one branch, and swap back. Because , that branch is unchanged, while the other branch acquires on the data. Reversing the control convention with Pauli X gates gives controlled-. The reference state is returned unchanged, and each use costs one query to and controlled-SWAP gates.
Expand in an eigenbasis of . Exact quantum phase estimation with an -qubit phase register producesApply the available phase gates, controlled by the corresponding bits of , to multiply branch byThen reverse phase estimation. Although no oracle was supplied, every eigenvalue obeys , so . The inverse controlled powers can therefore be implemented with forward calls to . Since , phase estimation and its inverse use only queries. The phase register returns to , while the data register isAs a direct check, the same spectral promise implies .
If for a nonzero eigenvector, then . Thus , soBoth values need not occur: the zero matrix has only , and the identity matrix only . More precisely, an idempotent linear map whose rank of a linear map is has copies of and copies of . Indeed, its image of a linear map and kernel of a linear map form a direct sum, giving an eigenbasis without assuming an orthogonal projection.
The eigenvector equations combine column by column into . Since , multiplication by the inverse matrix gives the diagonalizationThe nonzero determinant of ensures that its columns form an eigenbasis.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2001 Paper 1 7 Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Boundary form. For real functions and , integration by parts givesThe integral terms containing cancel, as do the terms. This is the Lagrange identity for a Sturm-Liouville operator. The boundary conditions must make this boundary form zero for every admissible pair. Several suitable choices are homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions at both endpoints; homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions at both endpoints; one of each; or separated homogeneous Robin boundary conditionswhere each fixed real pair is nonzero. At each endpoint the two boundary data vectors are then proportional, making their antisymmetric product zero. Another choice is periodic data and , which cancel the two endpoint contributions. These domains give the required self-adjoint differential operator in the regular setting.
Eigenfunctions. Set , , and . The chain rule givesThe Chebyshev differential equation therefore becomes , with . For a positive integer , the first condition excludes the cosine term and the second is satisfied by . ThusThere is no nonzero eigenfunction: the transformed solution is linear in and vanishes at both endpoints only if identically zero. Negative merely repeats a positive mode with the opposite sign, so it is excluded from the indexing of an independent eigenbasis.
Weight and normalization. Multiplying the differential equation by puts it into Sturm-Liouville form:Hence , and . Under , the measure becomes , soThereforeThese endpoints are singular because vanishes and diverges there, but the weight is integrable. Moreover remains finite, so the vanishing values of make the boundary form zero. These are the Dirichlet eigenfunctions of the Chebyshev differential operator, not the first-kind Chebyshev polynomials , which have nonzero endpoint values.
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Variational formulation. Take real with in the interval, and impose homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, or other suitable conditions that cancel the boundary terms. The functionalhas Euler-Lagrange equationwhich is equivalent to . The same construction is constrained stationarity of the energy subject to , with a Lagrange multiplier. For fixed zero endpoint values, the variation vanishes at both ends; homogeneous zero-flux conditions also cancel the boundary term .
Multiplying the differential equation by and using integration by parts gives the Rayleigh quotientFor a nonzero admissible trial function, by the Rayleigh-Ritz variational principle. The Rayleigh-Ritz method chooses trial functions satisfying the endpoint conditions, often with adjustable coefficients, and minimizes this quotient over that trial family. Expanding in a normalized eigenbasis shows why the lower bound holds: , a weighted average of eigenvalues no smaller than the least one.
Radial quadratic trial. The radial problem becomeswhere the printed endpoint notation refers to . Thus and . At the origin the vanishing and regularity of make the boundary term vanish; the weight must be retained in both numerator and denominator.
For a quadratic , the derivative condition sets and the outer condition gives . Overall amplitude cancels in the Rayleigh quotient, so take . ThenwhileConsequently
Why the estimate is higher. For a regular radial function put . Then , and direct differentiation transforms the equation to . Its first mode is , corresponding to with its continuous value at the origin. Thus . The quadratic trial is not proportional to that Spherical Bessel function, so it has nonzero components in higher modes. Its Rayleigh quotient is therefore strictly larger than , in agreement with .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2002 Paper 1 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
As is a unitary matrix, . Let . Its conjugate transpose is , so and every positive integer power are Hermitian matrices and have real eigenvalues.
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Suppose and . ThenBecause the eigenvalues of are distinct, the eigenspace for is one-dimensional. It follows that , including the possibility . Thus an orthonormal eigenbasis of is also an eigenbasis of . The simplicity of both spectra means their eigenvectors coincide as directions, up to ordering, phases and nonzero scalar multiples.
Conversely, if they share a complete eigenbasis, choose the unitary matrix whose columns are these common normalized eigenvectors. Then and are diagonal, so and . HenceThis is simultaneous diagonalization of the two Hermitian matrices.
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The spectral theorem gives a real orthonormal eigenbasis for a real symmetric matrix . Distinct eigenspaces are orthogonal; within a repeated eigenspace, choose an orthonormal basis, for example by Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. Put these eigenvectors in the columns of . Then andFor a change of variables , choose . Since , the quadratic form becomes ; the are precisely the eigenvalues of .
In the numerical case, the off-diagonal entries are half the cross-term coefficients, soA direct eigenvector calculation gives the unit eigenvectors , , , with eigenvalues two, three and minus six. They are pairwise orthogonal. Therefore the required orthogonal diagonalization isand the transformed quadratic form is .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2003 Paper 1 5 b Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Let . The commutation relation gives , so preserves the eigenspace of with eigenvalue . Because it is a nondegenerate eigenvalue, the eigenspace is one-dimensional, and for some real . This includes . Thus the eigenvectors of form a common eigenbasis, andWriting the corresponding unit-modulus eigenvalue of as givesThe pairing refers to the same common eigenvector; independent reorderings of the two real spectra would lose this information. The simultaneous diagonalization can also be constructed without requiring simple eigenvalues by diagonalizing within each eigenspace of .
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A square complex matrix is a unitary matrix when , so it preserves the Euclidean norm. If with , then , giving . For a Hermitian matrix and ,because the numerator equals its complex conjugate. Hence no eigenvalue of is zero, proving it is invertible.
For , the Hermitian conjugate is . The factors and their inverses commute, since they are rational functions of . Thus . Its action on the same eigenvectors isThese eigenvalues have modulus one. This is the Cayley transform of a Hermitian matrix in the convention that avoids the unitary eigenvalue one.
For the inverse direction, givesTaking the conjugate transpose of therefore yieldsThe last equality uses commutativity of the two factors. This proves that the inverse Cayley transform of a unitary matrix without eigenvalue one is Hermitian. Solving for gives . An orthonormal eigenbasis of therefore diagonalizes , with diagonal entries .
The result extends even when a unitary matrix has eigenvalue one: choose so that does not. There are only finitely many forbidden phases, since the matrix has finitely many eigenvalues. Diagonalizing also diagonalizes in the same basis. Thus every unitary matrix is unitarily diagonalizable.
An isotropic tensor has unchanged components under every proper rotation of the Cartesian axes. Every rank-zero scalar is isotropic, and is a rank-two example. The zero rank-one tensor is isotropic, but no nonzero vector is: a half-turn about an axis perpendicular to it reverses its sign.
For the inertia tensor, write and , so . Expand its defining integrand. Every cross term has an integral containing by the definition of the centre of mass. The remaining terms give the tensor parallel-axis theorem:For a uniform unit ball, rotational symmetry gives . Its trace is , so and . ThereforeAssuming positive mass, it is isotropic exactly when . For , its eigenvalues and directions areTo give an explicit orthonormal eigenbasis when , take and . If is a nonzero vector along the third axis, take the first two coordinate unit vectors instead. At , all three eigenvalues are and every orthonormal basis works. The inertia tensor of a displaced uniform ball describes the same result for an arbitrary radius.
Suppose first that , and take an eigenvector of , with . Commutation givesSince the eigenvalue is simple, its eigenspace is one-dimensional, so for some scalar . Thus every vector in an eigenbasis of is also an eigenvector of . The simple spectrum of ensures these account for its eigenvector directions as well. Eigenvectors are understood up to nonzero scaling and permutation, rather than as literally identical numerical vectors.
Conversely, if are a common eigenbasis with and , thenfor every basis vector. Hence . ThereforeThis is simple spectrum gives simultaneous diagonalization. Without simple spectra, commuting Hermitian matrices still possess a common orthonormal eigenbasis, but not every arbitrary eigenvector of one matrix must be an eigenvector of the other.
A square matrix is a diagonalizable matrix over a specified field if some invertible matrix makes diagonal. Equivalently, the underlying vector space has a basis of eigenvectors of .
For example,The first is already diagonal. The second has only the eigenvalue one, of algebraic multiplicity two, but its eigenspace consists of and has dimension one. It cannot supply a two-vector eigenbasis.
A square matrix is a diagonalizable matrix over the chosen field when there are an invertible matrix and a diagonal matrix such that . If is column of and , the identity gives . Invertibility makes these columns linearly independent eigenvectors.
Conversely, put linearly independent eigenvectors in the columns of and their eigenvalues in . Then is invertible and , givingRepeated eigenvalues are allowed; the requirement is a complete eigenbasis, not distinctness of the eigenvalues.
A single eigenbasis works for every choice of the parameters. The columns , , satisfyThey are linearly independent because their column matrix has determinant one. Thus the diagonalization isThis formula includes all coincidences among , so no special repeated-eigenvalue cases need separate bases.
Since both real matrices are antisymmetric, and . Thus . Expand the two unitary identities:Subtracting and adding give . Because has simple eigenvalues, each of its complex eigenspaces is one-dimensional. Commutation makes each one invariant under : if , then . Hence for some scalar . The complete eigenbasis of is therefore a common eigenbasis, which also diagonalizes .
The skew-Hermitian decomposition of a unitary matrix is explicit:If , unitarity gives . ConsequentlyEquivalently, for the paired eigenvalues are . The hypotheses can only occur in even dimension: and is invertible, whereas an odd-dimensional skew-symmetric matrix has zero determinant.
The power iteration starts from , normally scaled to unit Euclidean norm, and repeatsNormalization prevents the rapidly growing or decaying magnitudes of from obscuring its direction. The iteration requires .
Because is a diagonalizable matrix, choose an eigenbasis , with corresponding eigenvalues , and expand . First suppose the dominant eigenvalue is simple and . ThenForthe sum in parentheses after is in Big O notation. Consequently the power iteration direction error is : the iterates approach the line spanned by . For a real matrix, a uniquely dominant eigenvalue is real, since otherwise its complex conjugate would have the same modulus. If , approaches one unit eigenvector; if , successive alternate signs. In either case,This is the sign and phase in power iteration qualification. Also, the necessary assumption is a nonzero coefficient in the eigenbasis, rather than merely a nonzero ordinary inner product with : those tests can differ for a nonsymmetric matrix. If , the method cannot generate the missing component.
If the dominant value has a higher-dimensional eigenspace, the same argument replaces by the nonzero sum of all starting components in that eigenspace. The limiting direction is then that of this sum, which is still an eigenvector for . The usual algorithm assumes ; a strict dominance gap guarantees this whenever another eigenvalue is present.
An estimate retaining the sign of is the Rayleigh quotientContinuity of this quotient at a nonzero eigenvector proves the limit even when is a nonsymmetric matrix. Alternatively, for a coordinate whose limiting eigenvector component is nonzero. The scaling factor alone tends only to .
For observables , nonzero obstructs a complete common eigenbasis. In a finite-dimensional system, commuting Hermitian operators can be simultaneously diagonalized; quantum degeneracy may require choosing an appropriate basis inside the degenerate eigenspace. Noncommuting observables can still share particular eigenvectors, so incompatibility is not a claim that every individual state must have nonzero spreads in both quantities.
The Robertson uncertainty relation follows by applying Cauchy-Schwarz inequality to and :In particular gives . These are preparation spreads, not necessarily measurement errors. A zero commutator expectation can make this bound zero even when the linear operators do not commute.
Measurement order can matter: preparing , measuring , then measuring gives both z outcomes with probability when the intermediate result is ignored. A direct z measurement would give certainly. Finally the Heisenberg equation of motion relates commutation to conservation: an observable with no explicit time dependence and is conserved. For unbounded self-adjoint operators these statements require the appropriate common domains; a formal commutator calculation alone need not justify simultaneous spectral measurements.