Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 33 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
For a nonnegative submartingale and , the weak form of the Doob maximal inequality isTo prove it, let be the event that is the first index with . These events are disjoint, , and their union is . The submartingale property gives . Multiplying by , taking expectations and summing yields . Nonnegativity gives the second inequality.
The associated Doob Lp maximal inequality, for and , isIndeed , so conditional Jensen inequality first ensures finite th moments for all and hence for the finite maximum. Integrating the weak inequality against and using the Tonelli theorem givesThe last step is Holder inequality. Dividing, unless the maximum is zero, proves the stated norm bound. For an arbitrary martingale, its absolute value is a nonnegative submartingale by conditional Jensen inequality, so both corresponding absolute-maximum bounds follow.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 44 4 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Write and use the product measure . For , the conjugate exponents are and . Factor the utility integrand asThe Holder inequality on this product measure givesDivide by to obtain the Hölder bound for discounted CRRA consumption:For a finite right side this is ordinary Hölder; on the infinite measure space one can first truncate time and then pass by monotone convergence theorem. If and , the bound is valid but uninformative. If , the budget forces almost everywhere, so the utility integral is zero; handle this separately instead of writing an undefined .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 25 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The Vinogradov mean value isBy orthogonality of integer Fourier modes, it counts the ordered integer solutions of for , with every coordinate between one and . The diagonal solutions give .
Put . The moment vector has at most possible values. If counts the tuples with vector , then and . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality gives . Combining the two lower bounds, with one common positive constant for large , yields
Here is an explicit way that upper bounds enter the Vinogradov mean-value method for a bilinear exponential sum. Write and . Two applications of the Holder inequality, followed by grouping equal differences of moment vectors, giveAt integer the minimum is defined as ; means distance to the nearest integer. To explain the mean-value factor, let count pairs of -tuples with prescribed moment difference. It is an autocorrelation of , so by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. The first Holder inequality groups the tuples, and the second groups the tuples, providing the two factors . The remaining sums over moment differences are bounded by the displayed finite geometric series estimates. Good Vinogradov mean value upper bounds, together with rational approximation or spacing bounds for , therefore give cancellation in . The mean-value estimate alone does not force cancellation for arbitrary coefficients: when all are integers, . For the paper take and the specified .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 68 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A one-dimensional Sobolev representative is absolutely continuous. For , the fundamental theorem of calculus and Holder inequality giveThus has a representative in . The qualification about representatives matters because a Sobolev space element is an almost-everywhere equivalence class.
In two dimensions, the Sobolev fundamental theorem of calculus on lines and Fubini's theorem imply that almost every horizontal and vertical slice belongs to and has this one-dimensional Hölder continuity. The slice seminorm depends on the slice; this does not give one uniform pointwise estimate on the square. For , Morrey's inequality additionally gives a globally Hölder continuous representative of exponent . For , global continuity need not hold. For example, with a smooth cutoff around an interior point, lies in when , but is unbounded. At , the cutoff version of is unbounded while its gradient has finite squared integral, sinceThese examples distinguish Sobolev slicing and planar continuity from a false two-dimensional application of the interval exponent.
Put . A BV space is a function whose distributional derivative is a finite vector-valued Radon measure. Equivalently its total variation seminorm is finite:The BV space has norm . For , integration by parts against the compactly supported field gives . Conversely the measurable choice on nonzero gradients attains the pointwise bound. Approximating this bounded field by smooth fields, using interior cutoffs and the finite measure , justifies the supremum and givesIt is a norm of the derivative measure, rather than a pointwise derivative at jump discontinuities.
There is a genuine mismatch in the printed definition of the next functional. Its constraints on and are independent. Hence its stated supremum, denoted , separates asThe scalar supremum is , by cutoffs approaching one, and the vector supremum is the variation. For an affine image signal with , this gives , whereas the displayed square-root area would give . The intended relaxed graph-area functional instead uses the coupled pointwise constraint , givingwhere is the singular part of . Both readings have a minimizer, but their equations are different.
Here is the direct method in the calculus of variations for either reading. Let be the literal or the corrected , and define the energy on , assigning infinity elsewhere. A minimizing sequence has bounded energy by comparison with . Both , so its variation is bounded, and the fidelity bounds , hence also and . By bounded-variation compactness, a subsequence converges strongly in to , and after another subsequence almost everywhere. Fatou's lemma provesThe regularizer is a supremum of affine functionals continuous in , since the test-field divergence is bounded. It is therefore lower semicontinuous. Combining the two lower bounds proves existence of a minimizer. In fact the convex regularizer and the strictly convex squared fidelity make the minimizer unique up to null sets. This does not assert that the minimizer must belong to .
For the intended graph area, conditionally assume that the minimizer is in . For , differentiate at . The derivative of the integrand is bounded by , so dominated convergence applies. The weak equation isthat is,This is the graph-area Euler-Lagrange equation. Compactly supported variations impose no boundary condition in this statement.
For the literal printed supremum, the constant drops out and one obtains total variation denoising. Its total variation calibration form isThe distributional equation means . In particular wherever the gradient is nonzero; writing this quotient without handling zero gradients would be incomplete. Formally the one-sided derivative of isMinimality in the directions and bounds the remaining linear functional by the second integral. The Hahn-Banach theorem extends it on that zero-gradient set to a bounded vector field of magnitude at most one, furnishing and the displayed weak equation. Thus the literal definition has a nonsmooth subgradient equation, not the square-root equation above.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 7 1 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For each with , a sufficient condition is on every finite interval. The Minkowski integral inequality and measure preservation give the finite-time Lp bound for Hamiltonian transportFor all finite simultaneously, impose, for example, . The elementary bound and the Holder inequality in time show that its norms are locally integrable for every . If a bounded initial value is also required, the same assumption controls the endpoint by the previous part.
A concrete stronger condition, compatible with a nonzero source, is that on each finite time interval the source has a common compact support in . Its continuity then makes it bounded on that compact cylinder, so all these integrability conditions hold. A nonzero smooth source compactly supported in phase space supplies examples.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 10 3 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
We use the homogeneous version of the Sobolev embedding theorem in three dimensions:Here homogeneous Sobolev space is the completion of compactly supported smooth functions in the L2 norm of the gradient, identified with its representative. Apply this Sobolev inequality both to and to its spatial derivatives.
LetThe Plancherel theorem identifies the L2 norm of the Hessian matrix with , because . In particular,Differentiating the defocusing semilinear wave equation gives . By the Holder inequality with exponents and , the preceding Sobolev inequality, and conservation of the positive wave energy,Use the inhomogeneous wave energy estimate simultaneously for the three spatial derivatives. It givesThe Gronwall inequality therefore yields . We may take the continuous, locally bounded functionThe constant is universal; the dependence on the initial data is only through and . The H2 bound for the defocusing cubic wave equation holds on every existing smooth interval, without assuming the global conclusion. If or , the zero solution satisfies the same estimate.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 30 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Write for the quadratic variation and setThe Hölder factorization of stochastic exponentials follows by adding exponents:ThusThe subtraction inside the numerator is , outside the square root.
The stochastic exponential starts at one and is a nonnegative local martingale, hence a supermartingale. The optional sampling theorem for a supermartingale gives expectation at most one at bounded stopping times. For a finite, possibly unbounded, stopping time , apply this to , then use continuity and the Fatou lemma:The Holder inequality with exponents and now givesThe inequality also holds when the right side is infinite.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 30 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The increasing quadratic variation has a limit in . Since has a finite limit, the exponentials have limits too, with value zero when the bracket is infinite. Expanding exponents provesbecause the coefficient of on the right isand the bracket coefficient is . Taking limits preserves the identity, including the zero case.
Let , , and . The Holder inequality first yieldsWhen is finite, apply the Jensen inequality to the concave function :Since , rearrangement gives the terminal scaling inequality for stochastic exponentialsHere . If the last exponential moment is infinite, the bound has no positive content; the finite-moment form is the one used below.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 105 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For an integer , the Sobolev space iswhere is a weak derivative. For one may use the Sobolev norm ; for use the maximum of the finitely many essential-supremum norms.
For , the Sobolev inequality is , with Sobolev conjugate exponent . For , Morrey's inequality supplies a continuous representative satisfyingAt the representative is Lipschitz continuous. At the critical exponent , first-order Sobolev regularity gives every finite embedding for , with an inhomogeneous norm, but generally no embedding. The one-dimensional endpoint is an exception.
For the proof of Morrey's inequality, start with a smooth and write for its average on a ball. Averaging the fundamental theorem of calculus along a line segment and changing radial variables givesThe last step is the Holder inequality; integrability of the kernel to power is exactly . For , translate the averaging ball along the segment from to . The fundamental theorem of calculus along a line segment and the Holder inequality giveCombining the two point-to-average bounds and this average-to-average bound proves the required Hölder estimate. The point-to-average bound with , together with , gives the supremum estimate. Density of smooth functions in a Sobolev space then gives a uniformly convergent sequence of smooth representatives, preserving both bounds. For , mollification gives the Lipschitz version.
For the decay conclusion assume . The representative is uniformly continuous. If along points escaping to infinity, the Hölder bound gives a radius , independent of , on which . A subsequence has disjoint radius- balls, each contributing at least to , a contradiction. This is uniformly continuous integrable functions vanish at infinity.
The finite- restriction is necessary. If the printed range includes , its decay assertion is false: belongs to but does not tend to zero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 205 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Fix the normalizationThe Lasso penalty uses the L1 norm. All arguments below apply to every minimizer; uniqueness of the coefficient vector is not assumed.
The Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions are the subgradient optimality conditionThese conditions are necessary and sufficient because the objective is a convex function. They use the subgradient of the absolute value, coordinate by coordinate.
Put . Centered columns imply , so the subtraction of in the model contributes nothing to the score. The Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions becomeMultiply by . Since and , this gives the prediction inequality from Lasso stationarity:This is the desired version of the Basic inequality for the Lasso. Using stationarity directly preserves the coefficient on the squared prediction norm.
For the Gaussian score event for the Lasso, write for column . The assumed Euclidean norm and the multivariate normal distribution of giveThe may be correlated, which does not affect the union bound. Use the following sharp two-sided Gaussian tail bound, valid for with the standard normal distribution and every :For completeness, the difference satisfies , , and as . It first increases and then decreases to zero, so it is nonnegative. This bound avoids introducing an unnecessary factor two.
Here is the standard normal distribution function. With , the union bound yieldsConsequentlyThe score event uses the supremum norm of ; the centering term still vanishes because .
We next work deterministically on . LetBy Holder inequality, . Since , the triangle inequality givesSubstituting both inequalities into the Basic inequality for the Lasso producesBecause , this also proves the relevant Lasso cone condition, . The assumed Compatibility condition for the Lasso therefore applies to :Set . Combining these inequalities givesIf , discarding the nonnegative term shows . If , compatibility gives , and the preceding inequality then gives . In either case , soThis is a fast prediction bound and an inactive-coordinate error bound on the same event. It is the fast-rate Lasso prediction bound under compatibility.
Finally, the same argument bounds the active-coordinate L1 norm byIf , then , and . When this implies ; when it implies . Thus the sign function obeysThis is Lasso sign recovery under compatibility. It concerns the sufficiently large nonzero coefficients; it does not assert that every estimated inactive coefficient is zero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 205 6 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Put . The Debiased Lasso correction isFor the Nodewise Lasso, let . Its Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions areso at a nonzero coefficient and at a zero coefficient. Multiplying by gives the nodewise-Lasso residual identityWe require nonzero design columns, a necessary qualification missing from the unrestricted printed formulation. Because , would force both and , and hence . Thus nonzero columns suffice for even when or the full Gram matrix is singular. A zero column instead gives and its coefficient is unidentifiable from ; the proposed normalization and confidence interval do not exist there.
For each , define by and . Set row of to . Since ,This row construction is the nodewise normalization used by van de Geer and coauthors. The matrix need not be symmetric or be an actual inverse.
Substitute the linear model into the correction. The exact decomposition isIn the fixed-design normal linear model, or with and nodewise estimates and tuning chosen from alone, a linear transformation of a multivariate normal distribution gives . Marginal normality of without this conditional assumption would not suffice for a response-dependent random design. No independence between and is asserted. The diagonal cancellation and the Holder inequality give the debiased-Lasso remainder bound
For a coordinate variance, , whenceWriting for the corresponding standard normal quantile, an approximate confidence interval isEquivalently its half-width is . We assume and . For asymptotic coverage, the standardized remainder must have convergence in probability to zero and the coordinate variance must be nondegenerate. Exact conditional normality of alone does not give finite-sample exact coverage for .
One sufficient random-design regime is the Gaussian identity design for debiased Lasso: take independent rows , independently of , fixed , , , andChoose and all for sufficiently large fixed . Here is why this regime has the requested remainder bound. Uniformly over columns, their squared norms divided by tend to one, while all off-diagonal sample cross-correlations have magnitude at most a constant times with probability tending to one. Taking larger makes the zero vector satisfy all nodewise Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions strictly, so for every on that event, and eventually. This also gives uniformly.
In this regime, the entrywise entrywise concentration of a Gaussian Gram matrix and Lasso cone condition argument in Gaussian identity design for debiased Lasso gives a Compatibility condition for the Lasso bounded away from zero with probability tending to one. Together with the noise-score event and the Basic inequality for the Lasso, this yields, for a fixed ,For example, the cone inequality and compatibility bound give on their joint event. Therefore, with a fixed ,The stated sparsity condition makes this remainder vanish and supplies the preceding confidence-interval requirement. Both dimensions may grow: and satisfy these assumptions. The concentration and Gaussian-design compatibility results are sufficient standard conditions here; the question does not require their proofs. The displayed rate is a high-probability fixed-constant bound, rather than only a claim of boundedness in probability.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 340 5 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Absolute values are missing in the printed formula. For signed real blocks, the intended block mixed norm must beWithout them, at a block has value zero although it is nonzero, and a negative scalar has negative value. For nonintegral , a negative component may not even have a real power. The literal expression therefore is not a norm and does not define the claimed general convex problem. Even integer exponents do not fix all other in the stated range.
With the corrected norm, let be the Holder conjugate exponent: for and for . Blockwise Holder inequality, with equality from a norming block, givesThe duality of block mixed norms identifies the closed compact convex set and the projection residual from the Moreau decompositionFor , the dual blocks are Euclidean balls; for , they are cubes given by componentwise bounds . No injectivity or surjectivity of is required: compactness of the block product makes its linear image compact, and the strictly convex fidelity still gives a unique primal minimizer. For general , the Euclidean projection onto a dual block ball is not generally obtained by radial scaling, so the special clipping formula from the isotropic case should not be reused without further analysis.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 105 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Put and . The fundamental theorem of calculus along a line segment, followed by averaging, givesFor fixed , use the change of variables formula . Its Jacobian determinant is . The transformed domain lies in , because a cube is a convex set. Moreover, implies . Thus Tonelli theorem givesThe diagonal is a null set. The Holder inequality with now applies: implies , and integration in spherical coordinates bounds the kernel byThis proves the Morrey inequality on a cube, uniformly even when approaches its boundary:Apply this at both and the center and use the triangle inequality to obtain
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 105 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let tend to in the Sobolev space , using density of smooth functions in a Sobolev space. Write . Applying the Morrey inequality on a cube to a unit cube centered at , and bounding its average by the Holder inequality, givesfor every smooth . Hence is a Cauchy sequence in the supremum norm and has a bounded continuous limit by uniform convergence. On every finite-measure cube, this limit is also the limit, so almost everywhere.
For , choose , so that . The second estimate from part (a), followed by passage to the limit, givesThus is a Hölder continuous function andIt is the unique continuous representative: two continuous functions agreeing almost everywhere agree everywhere.
For , take a smooth cutoff function equal to one near zero and setIts weak derivative has size near zero, whose th power is integrable because . Thus , but it is essentially unbounded in every neighborhood of zero and has no continuous representative. The value assigned at zero is irrelevant.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 205 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the convention that ridge regression minimizes . Its closed-form ridge regression estimator isThe factors and here specify the tuning convention. No intercept is needed for the centred responses and predictors.
For the two-component procedure, fix and put . Differentiating the objective with respect to its dense coefficient givesThus, with ,The inverse exists because , even for a rank-deficient design. The sum of the fitted sparse and dense components is the Lava estimator.
Multiplying by and completing the square gives the exact profile calculationLet . A singular value decomposition of shows that its eigenvalues are in nonzero singular directions and one in the orthogonal complement. Hence is a positive-definite matrix. Take its symmetric principal square root of a positive semidefinite matrix, . Profiling out therefore yields the Lasso reduction for the Lava estimator:No restandardization of is needed: this is the exact transformed objective with its original penalty.
Write , , and . Then . Comparing the transformed Lasso objective at and gives the Basic inequality for the LassoOn , Holder inequality bounds the score by . Using cancels the fitted penalty and yields the slow-rate prediction bound for the Lasso:Finally, if , then , soConsequentlyPositive actually guarantees for every finite design; the factor measures how much prediction norm the profiling transformation can remove.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 205 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For a convex function , its subdifferential at is the set of supporting slopesThe subgradient optimality condition isIndeed, the defining inequality with is exactly the global minimum inequality. For the subdifferential of the L1 norm, the coordinates vary independently:
Let . The Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions for Lasso give a vector such that . If , the unsquared residual norm is differentiable at this fit, with gradientUsing the subdifferential sum rule, choose to obtainConvexity now proves the tuning relation between Lasso and square-root Lasso:The positive residual assumption is needed both for this gradient and for the quotient defining the tuning parameter.
For the final score calculation, use the usual fixed-design interpretation of the normal linear model: regard and the tuning parameter in the regression of as fixed, and choose that regression's minimizer using only those inputs. Its nonzero residual then has the Square-root Lasso optimality conditionExpanding the response residual givesSince is a fixed unit vector and , a linear image of a multivariate normal vector gives . Finally, Holder inequality and the residual score bound yieldThis is the residual-score decomposition from square-root Lasso. The normality statement also holds conditionally on a design independent of the noise. If were chosen from the response noise, for example through the preceding formula, the direction would require a separate independence argument; the final calculation treats as fixed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 3 22F a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
For , the Lebesgue space consists of equivalence classes modulo equality almost everywhere of measurable functions satisfyingThe space consists of essentially bounded measurable functions modulo equality almost everywhere, with norm
Let and put . By Hölder's inequality,Taking th roots givesFor , directly integrating gives the same endpoint estimate. Hence when , as in Lp inclusion on a finite measure space.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 107 3 ii Solution 2026-10-03
On the finite-measure ball, the Holder inequality givesSquaring and using yieldsSince for , this is (6), with .