Past exam of the mathematical methods I course of the University of Oxford 2018 5 b Solution 2026-10-25
Let with . A vanishing commutator gives , so belongs to the eigenspace . This is eigenspace invariance for commuting linear maps. A nondegenerate eigenvalue has a one-dimensional eigenspace, so for a scalar ; is allowed. Therefore is also an eigenvector of . Without the simple-eigenvalue condition, can mix vectors inside a larger eigenspace, and an arbitrarily chosen eigenvector of need not be an eigenvector of .