Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 12 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the positive Laplace-Beltrami operator, . A flat torus is the quotient , where is a full-rank Euclidean lattice and the metric descends from the Euclidean metric. Its dual lattice isIf is the covolume of , the functions descend to the torus. Direct differentiation gives the spectrum of a flat torus:The multiset includes one entry for each dual vector. In particular zero has multiplicity one. Writing identifies the dual vectors with , . Standard Fourier series on the unit cube then prove that these functions are an orthonormal basis of on the torus. If , its Fourier coefficients satisfy . Thus every eigenfunction is a linear combination of the indicated shell of frequencies, with no additional eigenvalues. Compactness gives the discrete self-adjoint realization, whose eigenfunctions are smooth. For real functions the two characters at become cosine and sine, giving the same real multiplicities. The opposite Laplacian sign would negate all displayed eigenvalues without changing the rigidity conclusion.
To prove two-dimensional spectral rigidity, let and recover its Gram matrix from its vector-length multiset. Let be the shortest nonzero length and choose with . This vector is primitive: a proper integer multiple would have a shorter lattice vector. Hence . From the spectral multiset subtract exactly two occurrences of each length , . The remaining multiset consists precisely of the vectors not on this line, including correct multiplicities at coincident lengths. Its least length is the length of a shortest vector independent of .
The pair is a basis of . Otherwise take a lattice point in a nonzero coset of and reduce its two coefficients into . The resulting nonzero lattice vector is not on , by primitivity of . Butwith strict inequality: when both coefficients are nonzero the triangle inequality is strict for independent vectors, and when one vanishes its length is at most . This contradicts the definition of . Subtract an integer multiple of from and, if necessary, change its sign to arrange ; minimality of makes this reduction possible without decreasing its length.
The covolume of is also spectral. The count of lattice vectors with length at most obeysFor example, translate a bounded fundamental parallelogram of diameter bound : the union of tiles with centres in contains and lies inside . Comparing their areas proves the leading coefficient. The spectrum supplies this count. Since is a lattice basis, its parallelogram area satisfies . ThereforeAll three quantities are determined by the spectrum. Equal Gram matrices give an orthogonal map between the dual lattices; taking duals gives an orthogonal map between the original lattices, descending to a Riemannian isometry of the tori. Isospectral flat two-tori are isometric. This is the two-dimensional lattice reconstruction from vector lengths; it uses lengths with multiplicities, not merely the set of distinct lengths.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 27 3 iv Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
We use the canonical height pairing normalization , so that . The supplied values giveThe convention without the factor instead gives the doubled pairing ; all independence conclusions are the same.
In our convention the Gram matrix is approximatelyThis positive margin is much larger than the rounding uncertainty. Even allowing each of the three stated heights an error of , we have , and , giving . Thus the actual canonical height pairing matrix is positive-definite, not merely its rounded approximation.
If for integers , bilinearity and the height parallelogram identity give . Positive definiteness forces . This is the rank certificate from rounded canonical heights, and provesHere the last brackets denote the generated subgroup, not the scalar height pairing. The argument proves independence; it does not assert that these points generate the entire Mordell-Weil group.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 39 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
In fixed-design nonparametric regression, the covariates are deterministic andFor the usual finite-variance model assume independent errors with . In random-design nonparametric regression, the pairs are independent observations and ; equivalently with conditional mean-zero errors. Conditional variances are generally assumed bounded for risk bounds.
For a nonnegative regression kernel and a smoothing bandwidth , the Nadaraya–Watson estimator iswhen the denominator is positive; replace by for random-design nonparametric regression. The local polynomial regression estimator of degree minimizes the weighted least squares criterionand reports . If the weighted Gram matrix is invertible, this minimizer is unique. The Nadaraya-Watson estimator is exactly local polynomial regression of degree zero. Higher degrees reproduce nonconstant polynomials and reduce boundary bias of an estimator.
The requested error bound needs and mean-zero independent errors of uniformly bounded variance, along with the matrix condition in the hint. The degree requirement is missing from the printed question. To see the problem, take , , , zero errors, , and . This regression function has two bounded derivatives, but the local constant estimate is the average of for :The scalar matrix is bounded away from zero for every . Nevertheless , so the printed conclusion with fails. A bounded-variance error hypothesis is also essential; otherwise an expectation bound need not even be finite.
Under the qualified hypotheses, use andThis symmetric Gram matrix has inverse operator norm bounded by the reciprocal of its uniform positive eigenvalue lower bound. If is supported in , only contribute. The equally spaced design and imply that there are at most such points. The bounded kernel and bounded on this interval therefore yieldFor the stochastic part, variance additivity for independent random variables and Cauchy-Schwarz inequality giveFor the deterministic part, let be the Taylor polynomial of at of degree . The polynomial reproduction property of local polynomial regression gives . By Taylor's theorem, on the kernel window. ThusCombining the two parts provesThe argument also applies at the endpoints when the assumed matrix bound holds. With arbitrary degree, the generally valid smoothness term is ; extra symmetry can improve some interior biases but does not fix the general boundary counterexample.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 10 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The general modular form, the nonuniform Frankl-Wilson theorem, can be stated as follows. Let be a prime number, and let have elements. Suppose has for every member, while for any distinct members. ThenThe uniform Frankl-Wilson theorem sharpens this to when all members have size and . Both forms require a prime modulus and exclusion of the self-intersection residue.
For the general proof, work over the finite field . Associate to each member the intersection polynomialAt the characteristic vectors of sets , this is zero if , and nonzero if . Thus these polynomials, regarded as functions on the Boolean hypercube, are linearly independent: evaluating any relation at isolates its coefficient. Apply multilinear reduction on the Boolean cube, replacing every positive power of a variable by that variable. Values on the Boolean hypercube remain unchanged, and the resulting multilinear polynomials have degree at most . Their ambient space has a monomial basis consisting of for , with dimension . This proves the general bound, including .
For completeness, obtain the uniform sharpening without dividing by factorials in a finite field. For put and . The functions with are linearly independent. Indeed, a relation gives with , so is supported only on weights in . With boundary weights , this set has a gap of at least : either consecutive allowed weights differ by , or its terminal gap does, since . The alternating sum of over any interval of free coordinates vanishes by its degree. Across that gap only one endpoint level can contribute, forcing to vanish there. Delete that level and repeat across the enlarged gap until is empty. Hence , and independence of the square-free monomials gives the claim. Adjoin these functions to the . Evaluation at each family vector eliminates the coefficients of , since vanishes there; the claim eliminates all remaining coefficients. Counting dimensions yieldsThe case permits at most one member directly. The gap argument is an instance of the modular layer vanishing lemma.
For the final application, enumerate the distinct sets as and let be their characteristic vectors of sets. If , the desired bound is immediate for . Otherwise , because intersects another member in points. At most one member can have size : two distinct -sets cannot have intersection size . The Gram matrix of these vectors isFor real coefficients ,All terms are nonnegative, with . If the expression vanishes, every coefficient corresponding to a set of size greater than is zero. At most one coefficient remains, and the first term forces it to be zero as well. Thus the characteristic vectors of sets are linearly independent in , proving the constant-intersection family boundThis proof explicitly covers the possible member of size exactly ; assuming all diagonal corrections were strictly positive would miss that case. Positivity of is essential: when , the empty set and all singleton sets give members.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 1 6 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The complexification of a Lie algebra is , with the Lie bracket extended complex-bilinearly. Equivalently write , whereComplex conjugation is an antilinear map and a Lie algebra automorphism whose fixed subalgebra is .
If the solvable radical of is nonzero, its complexification is a nonzero solvable ideal of . Conversely the solvable radical of is preserved by complex conjugation, because it is the unique largest solvable ideal. Consequentlyfor , both and belong to . If , is a solvable ideal of . This proves is semisimple if and only if is semisimple. Consistently, the complex Killing form is just the complex-bilinear extension of the real one; its determinant in a real basis is unchanged by extending scalars.
Take the sl2R Lie algebra and the special unitary Lie algebra . Both complexify to . This is immediate for the former; for the latter, the real basis consists of traceless matrices that are skew-Hermitian matrices and is also a complex basis of .
They are not isomorphic as real Lie algebras. Their Killing forms are , but on this is negative definite. On the basis has a diagonal Gram matrix with entries , so the signature of a quadratic form is . A Lie algebra isomorphism preserves the Killing form and therefore its signature.
A real split semisimple Lie algebra has a Cartan subalgebra whose Adjoint representation of a Lie algebra is simultaneously diagonalizable over , so its root-space decomposition is defined over . The example is split: the diagonal Cartan subalgebra has eigenvalues and real root spaces . The example is not split. Invariance makes every skew-adjoint for the positive definite inner product , so its eigenvalues are purely imaginary. If it were diagonalizable over , all these eigenvalues would be zero and . The center is zero, so only has this property; no nonzero split Cartan subalgebra exists. Thus is split and is not.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 36 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Work in , the domain of the matrix ; the printed in the introduction is a dimension typo. For a fixed nonempty support of a vector , write for the coordinates of in . ThenThe Gram matrix is a Hermitian matrix, so its difference from the identity matrix is also a Hermitian matrix. By the finite-dimensional spectral theorem, its matrix 2-norm is the largest absolute eigenvalue, equivalentlyIndeed, an expansion in an orthonormal eigenbasis bounds every Rayleigh quotient by the largest absolute eigenvalue, and an appropriate eigenvector attains that bound. The restricted isometry constant must bound this quantity for every of size at most , and the maximum of these quantities suffices for all sparse vectors of order . There are finitely many sets, so the maximum exists. The empty set contributes zero. Therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 36 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use the natural empty-sum convention for cumulative coherence. This is needed for the printed case . For the conclusion is immediate. Otherwise let be its support of a vector, with . The Gram matrix has diagonal entries one because the columns have unit Euclidean norm. Each off-diagonal row sum is bounded byThe last inequality uses monotonicity of cumulative coherence: enlarging an index set only adds nonnegative summands. There are enough indices to enlarge it because .
The Gershgorin circle theorem places every eigenvalue of within distance of one. Since is a Hermitian matrix, its eigenvalues are real, and the finite-dimensional spectral theorem givesThis is the cumulative coherence bound for restricted isometry. The lower bound remains valid when , although it is then nonpositive. No assumption that the matrix is already a near isometry is required. The distortion is bounded by on every order- sparse vector.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 36 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
For one-column Gram matrices, unit Euclidean norm of the columns gives . The restricted isometry constant formula therefore gives . For a two-column Gram matrix, put . The difference from the identity matrix has the formup to the convention for the complex inner product. Its characteristic polynomial is , so the eigenvalues are and its matrix 2-norm is . Maximizing over pairs gives , where is the mutual coherence.
Part (b), together with the minimality defining the restricted isometry constant, gives . Every summand defining cumulative coherence is at most the mutual coherence, so . Thus, for normalized columns and ,The upper range matters because the printed definition of cumulative coherence stops at . For , only is needed; the maximum over pairs defining mutual coherence is otherwise empty.