Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2021 Paper 2 Section A A3 Solution 2026-10-18
Assume a hollow, perfectly conducting rectangular electromagnetic waveguide filled with air approximated by vacuum. Let its wider side be and its narrower side . The longitudinal propagation constant of a mode isso the waveguide cutoff frequency isFor a mode with transverse electric polarization, one of may vanish, but they cannot both vanish. For a mode with transverse magnetic polarization, both must be positive. A single hollow conducting guide has no transverse electromagnetic mode with zero cutoff.
The lowest cutoff therefore belongs to the mode, varying across the wider side:Strictly, a traveling mode transporting energy down the guide requires . At exactly , and the axial group velocity vanishes. Below cutoff the field is evanescent. A different dielectric filling would replace by the wave speed in that material.
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2021 Paper 2 Section A A5 Solution 2026-10-18
For charge sharing between distant connected spheres, use the standard approximation that the spheres are sufficiently far apart for mutual electrostatic effects to be negligible, and that the wire adds negligible capacitance. The capacitance of an isolated conducting sphere is . ThusThe initial charges are . Connecting the spheres allows charge to flow until their potentials are equal. Charge conservation givesThe initial and final electrostatic energies are and . Their difference becomes Joule heating in the resistive wire:Numerically,The resistance determines how fast this happens, not the final energy difference. Sufficient damping suppresses sustained charge-current oscillations; the calculation also neglects energy radiated away. At finite sphere separation the capacitance matrix would be needed, and the radii and initial potentials alone would not specify an exact correction.
Lagrangian mechanics expresses dynamics through generalized coordinates that respect the constraints. For a system with conservative, velocity-independent forces and standard kinetic energy, the Lagrangian is . Its equations follow from the principle of stationary action:for variations that vanish at the endpoints. Varying the integral and integrating the term by parts givesIndependent variations therefore yield the Euler-Lagrange equations:Additional nonconservative generalized forces appear on the right-hand side as . The action is stationary, not necessarily a minimum. For ideal holonomic constraints, using suitable generalized coordinates removes the need to solve explicitly for constraint forces.
The conjugate momentum is . If a coordinate is cyclic, and its conjugate momentum is conserved. If has no explicit time dependence, the energy functionis conserved. It equals for the usual quadratic kinetic energy with time-independent geometry, but that identification is not universal for every Lagrangian or constraint.
For example, a simple pendulum with angle , length and bob mass hasThe tension does no virtual work in the allowed angular displacement and never needs to be calculated to obtain the angular equation. The method scales naturally to coupled systems and coordinates with complicated geometry.
The expression is the canonical partition function for a system in thermal equilibrium with a large heat bath at fixed temperature . The system exchanges energy with the bath, while its particle number and external mechanical parameters, such as volume, are fixed. The bath is large enough that its temperature is not appreciably changed by this exchange.
The system has allowed energy levels . The index labels distinct energy values, and the integer degeneracy factor counts distinct quantum states with that same energy. is the Boltzmann constant, and is a state's Boltzmann factor. The dimensionless sum normalizes the probabilities:Thus the degeneracy multiplies the probability of occupying the level, not the probability assigned to each individual state within it.
The canonical model is not restricted to a classical ideal gas. It applies to a quantum rotor, for example, provided the sum counts all of that system's allowed states with their proper degeneracies. For a many-particle system, would be the energy of a many-particle state, with any quantum-statistical restrictions already built into the state count.
The internal energy is the canonical mean of the energy:Holding the external mechanical parameters fixed, so that the spectrum and degeneracies do not change when differentiating with respect to , givesComparison yieldsAn explicitly temperature-dependent effective Hamiltonian would require care: differentiating its partition sum would also differentiate the assigned energy levels. The stated result uses the fixed physical spectrum of the canonical system.
At low temperature, , retain the ground level and the first excited level. Their energies are and , with degeneracies and . Thereforeso in the notation of the question, is dimensionless and has units of kelvins. The first omitted level has three times the first excitation energy, explaining the exponent in the error term.
At high temperature, , many rotational levels are occupied and the sum can be replaced to leading order by an integral:Set , so that . ThenThusThe high-temperature approximation here concerns the rotational spectrum. For a real molecule it should still be used below temperatures where neglected vibrational excitation or dissociation invalidates the rigid-rotor model.
Using givesThe internal-energy identity from (b), followed by differentiation with respect to temperature at fixed moment of inertia, yieldsFor one mole of independent rotors, the rotational energy is and the rotational molar heat capacity is .
This agrees with the equipartition theorem. The given spectrum describes a linear rotor with two independent rotational degrees of freedom, each contributing to the high-temperature mean energy. Rotation about the molecular axis is not an additional degree of freedom of this ideal linear-rotor model, so the result is rather than per rotor. These are rotational contributions alone; translational and vibrational heat capacities have not been included. At low temperature the discrete excitation gap freezes rotational excitation out, so the rotational heat capacity tends to zero instead of remaining at its classical value.
The unit relative permittivity and vacuum-valued magnetic permeability imply and . The electromagnetic energy per unit volume isThe two contributions are the stored electric and magnetic energies. Although called in this paper, this quantity is an energy density; the total electromagnetic energy is .
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Paper 2 Section A A3 Solution 2026-10-18
(a) Treat the lake as a heat bath at fixed temperature and the block's heat capacity as constant. Its initial temperature is , and . Although the cooling is irreversible, entropy is a state function, so evaluate the block's change along an imagined reversible thermodynamic process:The lake receives heat , and thereforeAdding the two contributions givesThe positive result is consistent with the Second law of thermodynamics for heat transfer across a finite temperature difference. The calculation uses exactly as printed in both the original PDF and the transcription; it does not replace the supplied value by a tabulated value for lead.
(b) The block starts and eventually finishes at the lake's temperature, so its net entropy change is approximately zero. Neglecting buoyancy, air resistance and the final immersion depth, the lost gravitational potential energy becomes internal energy in the lake after the motion and waves have dissipated. The lake remains at , givingTemporary heating of the block or temporary storage in kinetic energy does not change this final energy and entropy balance once thermal equilibrium is restored.
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Paper 2 Section A A5 Solution 2026-10-18
Let be the upper- and lower-level populations and their degeneracy factors. At thermal equilibrium, the Boltzmann distribution givesNo degeneracy factors are supplied, so the numerical answers use equal degeneracy factors. Stating the ratio as upper population divided by lower population removes an otherwise arbitrary inversion.
(a) At ,The two populations are nearly equal because the level separation is much smaller than the thermal energy .
Past exam of the physics B course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Paper 2 Section B B6 Solution 2026-10-18
Newton's second law takes its familiar form in an inertial frame. Axes fixed to a turning apparatus or to the Earth form a rotating reference frame. Extra inertial forces account for the acceleration of these coordinates. Their values depend on the chosen reference frame; physical interactions such as gravity, tension and contact forces must still be included separately.
Let the rotating origin have inertial acceleration , and let its axes have angular velocity . For any vector , the rotating-frame derivative formula isEach rotating basis vector changes by , which proves this rule by expanding in that basis. Apply it twice to the position relative to the moving origin. With and measured in the rotating axes,Consequently the equation in the rotating reference frame isThe additional terms are the translational inertial force, Coriolis force, Euler force and centrifugal force, respectively. The last two simplify when the angular velocity is constant: the Euler force vanishes, while the other rotation terms remain.
The centrifugal force points away from the rotation axis. If is the perpendicular displacement from that axis, thenFor uniform rotation it has potential energyA mass at rest relative to a turntable can therefore be described as having an inward tension or friction balancing its outward centrifugal force. In an inertial frame, the inward physical force instead produces the required centripetal acceleration. These are two descriptions of the same motion; one must not insert the rotating-frame outward term into the inertial equation as an additional physical interaction.
A rotating liquid gives a useful quantitative example. For a liquid in hydrostatic equilibrium relative to a vessel rotating uniformly about the vertical axis,Along the free surface the pressure is constant, so andThe surface is a elliptic paraboloid. This is the balance of gravity and the centrifugal force in the rotating description. On the Earth, the same outward acceleration reduces effective gravity, most strongly at the equator, and contributes to the planet's equatorial bulge.
The Coriolis force depends on relative motion:It is perpendicular to both and , vanishes for motion along the rotation axis, and reverses when the relative velocity reverses. The dot product givesThus the Coriolis force does no work in the rotating reference frame: it changes the direction of motion rather than directly changing the rotating-frame kinetic energy. For example, on a horizontal turntable rotating anticlockwise as viewed from above, an outward-moving slider has a clockwise Coriolis acceleration, whereas an inward-moving slider has an anticlockwise one. The deflection can be observed by comparing a laboratory camera with a camera rotating with the table.
For slow horizontal motion on the Earth at latitude , keep the vertical component of its angular velocity. In east-north coordinates the horizontal Coriolis acceleration isIt deflects motion to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. In large-scale atmospheric and oceanic motion it can balance a horizontal pressure gradient, giving geostrophic balance. With upward, the steady horizontal equation without friction isThe resulting velocity runs along lines of equal pressure. This approximation requires rotation to dominate local inertial changes; it is inappropriate close to the equator where tends to zero.
The Foucault pendulum gives another terrestrial example. In the small-angle approximation, its horizontal coordinates satisfyTo first order in the small ratio , the oscillation plane precesses relative to the ground at angular rate : clockwise in the northern hemisphere, zero at the equator, and one revolution per sidereal day at a pole. The Coriolis force explains this changing orientation without requiring energy input. Together these examples show why inertial forces are useful whenever the apparatus or environment supplies naturally rotating coordinates.
The method of images solves certain electrostatics problems by replacing a conductor by fictitious electric charges outside the region where the solution is required. The replacement must satisfy the actual boundary values of the electric potential as well as the prescribed sources. The uniqueness of Poisson equation then establishes that the constructed electric potential equals the physical one in that region. The image locations are mathematical devices; they are not real charges inside the metal.
For a point charge at above an infinite grounded conducting plane , put an image charge at . In a cylindrical coordinate system with coordinates the potential in the physical region isThis vanishes at , has the required singularity at the real charge, and tends to zero at infinity. With electric field , the induced surface charge density follows from the normal field immediately above the conductor:The force on is the field of the image evaluated at the real charge:The electrostatic energy relative to infinite separation is . The factor accounts for the fact that the induced charge changes as the real charge is assembled; treating the image as an independently fixed physical charge would give the wrong energy.
A second standard geometry is a grounded conducting sphere of radius with a charge a distance from its centre. Its exterior field is generated by an image at distance from the centre on the line towards the real charge. On the sphere the distances to the real and image charges are in the ratio , making their potentials cancel. For an isolated neutral sphere, an additional central image makes the total induced charge zero and leaves the surface an equipotential. The construction is powerful for suitable symmetric boundaries, but arbitrary boundaries do not in general admit a finite image system.
An incident electromagnetic wave generally produces reflected and transmitted waves because the two media have different electromagnetic response. Consider a flat interface between homogeneous, linear, lossless media with permittivities and magnetic permeabilities . Their wave speeds and wave impedances areFor each plane electromagnetic wave, . With no free surface charge or current, the interface conditions for electromagnetic fields require continuous tangential and normal . Equality of the phase at every point on the boundary gives equal angular frequencies and tangential wavevectors. Hence the reflection angle equals the incidence angle and Snell's law iswhere and each angle is measured from the normal.
At normal incidence use the same tangential axis for all electric amplitudes. The two independent boundary equations areSolving gives the amplitude Fresnel equationsFor nonmagnetic media, these become and . Reflection into a medium of larger refractive index therefore reverses the electric amplitude's sign at normal incidence.
The normal Poynting vector determines the reflected and transmitted fractions of incident power. At normal incidence,It is the power fractions, rather than the squared electric amplitudes alone, that add to unity.
At oblique incidence separate transverse electric polarization (, electric field perpendicular to the incidence plane) from transverse magnetic polarization (, electric field in that plane). For nonmagnetic media, writing and , the Fresnel equations areHere choose a common direction and, for each ray, the direction as . This makes the reflected basis reverse its tangential direction at normal incidence, explaining why the displayed then has the opposite sign to . Physical reflectance is independent of this sign convention. For either polarization with propagating transmission,For polarization, zero reflection occurs at the Brewster angle . If , incidence above the critical angle for total internal reflection produces an evanescent field in total internal reflection and for an isolated lossless interface. A lossy second medium requires complex response coefficients and an absorption term in the energy balance.
A cubic reflecting cavity supports standing waves with positive integer mode indices and wavevector components . A cell in mode space has volume . In the continuum approximation, a spherical shell of radius and thickness has one-eighth of its volume in the positive octant. There are two independent transverse photon polarizations for a generic wavevector. HenceThe photon energy is , so . ThereforeThis is the leading bulk density of states, valid when the cavity is large compared with the relevant wavelengths and many modes lie in the counting interval. A finite cavity has a discrete mode spectrum, with boundary corrections beyond this approximation. Modes with vanishing indices require separate boundary counting but do not change the leading term. Here is the reduced Planck constant, as printed in the original PDF; replacing it by would introduce an erroneous factor of .
Each independent cavity mode is a quantum harmonic oscillator of angular frequency . Its occupation numbers represent the numbers of photons in that mode. At thermal equilibrium, photons can be absorbed and emitted by the walls, so their number is not conserved and the photon chemical potential is zero. The Boltzmann distribution of the oscillator excitations then givesThe expression supplied in the paper is the thermal excitation energy. The oscillator's temperature-independent zero-point energy is excluded from the emitted thermal radiation.
Putting and into the mode count from (a) gives the number of modes per unit cavity volume:Multiplying by the mean thermal energy in each mode yields Planck's law in the angular-frequency convention:The two photon polarizations are already included in the density of states; no further factor of two is needed. has units , whereas has units .
For the rolling-cylinder loop contact threshold, set , the radius of the centre's circular path, and let run from the loop bottom. The centre starts above its lowest centre position. Its height gain from the bottom is . Energy conservation givesAt the top, contact requires , hence . Inserting the energy relation proves the limiting conditionThe same condition keeps elsewhere on the circle, sinceis smallest at the top.
For the centre's acceleration, the inward normal component is and the tangential component is . If and ,This convex quadratic has its largest endpoint value at . The maximum on the circular loop is at the bottom, directed vertically upward. For the limiting release height,The approach track's curvature is unspecified, so a global bound for an arbitrary approach shape cannot be proved from the sketch alone; the result above concerns the specified circular part and the usual smooth approach interpretation.
The finite-friction qualification of a marginal rolling loop also matters: the contact threshold presumes the stated no-slip idealization. At equality, near the top, required tangential friction vanishes linearly with angular distance from the top but vanishes quadratically. Thus any finite coefficient of static friction requires a release height above this limiting bound to maintain rolling everywhere; no coefficient is provided. This does not change the requested ideal contact criterion.
For collinear inelastic capture followed by two photons, each particle has and , with . An isolated collision conserves the vector sum of momentum and total energy, including rest energy, internal excitation and radiation. It need not conserve the sum of individual rest masses. At low speed,recovering the classical kinetic energy after subtracting .
Here the incoming Lorentz factors are and , soThe composite therefore hasIts rest mass exceeds because relative kinetic energy has become internal rest energy.
Direct differentiation gives . Inserting this into the Schrödinger equation and separately matching the and constant terms yieldsFor , and . The normalizable Gaussian has no nodes, as expected for the nondegenerate one-dimensional ground state of this confining potential.
The normalization integral is . Choose its irrelevant global phase so thatFor the oscillator ground-state density in a comparison wavelength, choose a free comparison particle with the same total energy. It has , hence comparison wavelength . ConsequentlyThe bound density is localized on scale , with standard deviation , rather than being spatially uniform like the density of a single free plane wave. The comparison does not assign constant free-particle momentum to the bound state; its total energy also includes potential energy.
The closed surface integral sums the outward electric flux: is the electric field, its outward vector area, the total enclosed charge and the vacuum permittivity. Gauss's law relates that flux to enclosed charge for any closed surface. High symmetry can make the field's magnitude constant on a suitable Gaussian surface and fix its direction; without symmetry, flux alone does not determine the local field.
For an isolated conducting sphere, charges reside at its surface and the exterior field is radial. ThusThe conductor has zero interior field. Integrating exterior field energy givesLet the initial charge per drop be . After disconnecting the charging supply, charge is conserved. Volume conservation gives final radius , total charge andInitial mutual energy is negligible at the stipulated large separation. HenceThe electrostatic energy increase on equal-drop coalescence is positive. It can be supplied by the decrease in surface energy during coalescence and/or by external mechanical work bringing like charges together. Remaining energy can become motion and heat. If the charge is too large, surface-energy release alone need not suffice to make merging spontaneous; conservation does not assert that it will. Keeping the drops connected to a voltage supply would instead be a different charge-balance problem.