Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 114 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The ordinary Poincare duality statement here is for a compact manifold without boundary, of dimension , oriented over the field . Its fundamental class induces isomorphismsfor every . For a manifold with boundary the appropriate statement is Poincare-Lefschetz duality with relative groups; the ordinary pairing need not be nondegenerate. Over a field, the universal coefficient theorem for cohomology identifies with the full dual of . The cap-cup evaluation identity and duality therefore makea perfect pairing. Explicitly, a nonzero has a nonzero cap product, and a linear functional on its homology group takes a nonzero value on that product. The same argument in the other variable proves nonsingularity. On the whole graded cohomology, define by taking the degree- part of before evaluation. For a nonzero component choose homogeneous of degree to pair nontrivially with it. All other components contribute zero in degree . This proves that the Poincare duality pairing is a nondegenerate bilinear form on ; it need not be symmetric on all degrees.
Put , so is positive and odd, and orient each by its product orientation. The Künneth theorem gives integral cohomology in degrees zero and , in degree , and zero elsewhere. Its two degree- generators have , equal to its top orientation class, and .
For a connected sum of oriented manifolds, excision and the long exact sequence for deleting a ball show that deleting a ball removes the top homology class and leaves all lower positive homology groups unchanged. The boundary sphere represents zero in the punctured manifold: it is the boundary of its relative fundamental chain. In the Mayer–Vietoris sequence for the two punctured pieces joined along the separating sphere, the orientation class of the connected sum maps onto that sphere's class. The intermediate positive groups are consequently the direct sums of the groups of the two original manifolds. This also covers , where the sphere is a circle and the boundary-class observation is necessary in the middle degree. Iterating and applying the universal coefficient theorem for cohomology givesHere ; under the conventional extension the same formula holds with a zero middle group.
Let be the top cohomological orientation class. The connected-sum pinch map to the wedge of the sphere products gives degree-one projections to each summand. Pull back the two factor classes from summand to obtain . Their product is , since the projection has degree one. Classes from different wedge summands have zero positive-degree cup products, and graded commutativity of the cup product supplies the reversed sign. Thus the full cohomology ring of a connected sum of odd-dimensional sphere products is the graded free abelian group just displayed with multiplicationThe unit is , and times any positive-degree class is zero by dimension. This describes all products, including .
The smooth involution is a diffeomorphism, since it is its own inverse. Its fixed set is closed; discreteness and compactness therefore make it finite. The supplied positivity of makes every fixed point nondegenerate with local index . The Lefschetz-Hopf fixed-point theorem then givesIndeed the degree-zero and top-degree traces are both one, because the manifold is connected and preserves its orientation; the middle degree is odd.
On , the form is a nondegenerate alternating bilinear form by Poincare duality and the oddness of . Thus it is a symplectic vector space of dimension . Naturality and orientation preservation show that preserves , and . For the eigenspaces of a symplectic involution, write : the polynomial has distinct roots over . If and , then , so the two vector subspaces are orthogonal. Each restricted form is nondegenerate, since a vector annihilating its own vector subspace also annihilates the other and hence all of . Their dimensions are therefore even, say , , with . ConsequentlyThis proves the fixed-point congruence for an involution on an odd-sphere connected sum:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 119 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Assume is a full and faithful functor and its essential image is closed under strong quotients. First its unit is invertible. To prove this directly, fullness gives with . The triangle identity and faithfulness give . Naturality of at and the other triangle identity giveThus is an isomorphism, and is also an isomorphism.
Factor as a strong epimorphism followed by a monomorphism. By closure under strong quotients, the intermediate object can, after transport along an isomorphism, be written as :Fullness gives for . Taking the transpose of under the adjunction, whose transpose is , givesHence is a split monomorphism, so is a monomorphism. A strong epimorphism which is monic is invertible: apply its lifting property to the square with that same map on both sides and identity top and bottom edges. Thus is invertible and is monic. We have proved the pointwise-monic unit-and-counit criterion:For a counterexample without the balanced hypothesis, use the pointwise-monic adjunction over a non-balanced poset. Let and let have one object and only its identity. The unique is left adjoint to selecting , since both and are singletons. All morphisms in a poset viewed as a category are monomorphisms, so the unit and counit are monic. However is not full: the identity has no preimage . The arrow is both monic and epic but not invertible, so is not a balanced category. The balanced hypothesis cannot be dropped.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 119 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A balanced category is one in which every morphism that is both a monomorphism and an epimorphism is an isomorphism. A faithful functor reflects both of these cancellation properties: for instance, implies , so monicity of and faithfulness imply ; the dual argument applies to epimorphisms. If is invertible, it is both monic and epic. Thus a faithful functor from a balanced category reflects isomorphisms.
For the adjunction , the unit and counit of an adjunction satisfyIf is a faithful functor and , applying and composing with gives , hence . Thus each is a monomorphism. Conversely, if every is monic and for , naturality givesso . This proves the faithful left adjoint criterion.
Now assume both and are pointwise monic. The first triangle identity makes a split epimorphism; since it is also a monomorphism, it is invertible and is its inverse. The faithful left adjoint criterion says that is faithful, and the balanced category argument above then reflects the invertibility of to that of .
For completeness, an invertible unit makes a full and faithful functor. For , set . The triangle identity gives , so naturality of yieldsFaithfulness was already proved.
Let be a strong epimorphism, and putThen naturality gives . The square with left edge , right edge the monomorphism , top edge , and bottom edge has a diagonal by the defining lifting property of a strong epimorphism. Thus . A monic split epimorphism is invertible, so . The essential image of is therefore closed under strong quotients.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 18I Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Use singular homology with integer coefficients. The Künneth theorem for triangulable spaces gives a split short exact sequence with tensor terms and torsion terms . When one factor's homology groups are free abelian, the torsion terms vanish and the tensor map is an isomorphism.
The circle has and all other groups zero. Inductively, the homology groups of a torus are free, andPascal's identity givesGeometrically the generators correspond to choosing of the circle factors and taking their product, consistent with the cellular model having one -cell for each such subset and cancelling opposite boundary faces.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 22I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
For algebraic varieties that are irreducible topological spaces, a rational map is an equivalence class of morphisms on nonempty open subsets of , with two representatives equivalent if they agree on a nonempty open intersection. Such subsets are dense. A birational map has a rational inverse; equivalently it restricts to an isomorphism between dense open subsets. In function field language it induces an isomorphism over the ground field.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 22I b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Work over the usual algebraically closed ground field of characteristic zero. Away from , a line of slope through the singular point meets the curve with . ThusSubstitution verifies the defining equation. On and , the two maps are inverse morphisms, so this is a birational map to . The two parameters both map to the node , explaining why the globally defined parametrization is not a global isomorphism.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 3 22I c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
Let . The proper transform isIndeed, in the blowup chart , write with . Homogeneity gives . Away from the exceptional divisor , the equation is , and its closure retains that equation, removing the exceptional factor . Every point with is approached algebraically along the line , so no component in this displayed set is extraneous.
For , the fibre is the single point , and the projection is an isomorphism over . Over the fibre is the projective plane cubic . In characteristic zero this cubic is smooth: a coordinate zero in the three derivative equations would force all coordinates zero; with all nonzero, multiplying , , gives , impossible. Thus the exceptional fibre is a smooth genus-one plane cubic. The fibre description itself does not require this optional smoothness conclusion; characteristic requires separate treatment.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ib Paper 4 10F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
For , define by . If , then in particularso . Thus is injective. Since a finite-dimensional vector space and its dual space have the same dimension, is also surjective and hence an isomorphism. This is the finite-dimensional real case of the Riesz representation theorem.
The adjoint operator of is the unique linear map satisfyingfor every and . In the stated orthonormal bases, if and denote coordinate columns, thenTherefore the matrix of is the matrix transpose .
For ,Hence . Taking orthogonal complements in the finite-dimensional space proves the image-kernel orthogonality for an adjoint
Put . For any ,This is minimized at exactly when , equivalently when . Thus the normal equation for a linear inverse problem is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 119 1 Solution 2026-10-03
A regular epimorphism is the coequalizer of some parallel pair . A strong epimorphism has the left lifting property against every monomorphism: in every commutative squarewith monic, there is satisfying and .
If coequalizes , then . Monicity gives , so the coequalizer property gives a unique with . Now ; every coequalizer is epic, hence . This proves that every regular epimorphism has the lifting property of a strong epimorphism.
For an arbitrary , form its kernel pair and let be its coequalizer. There is a unique with . To show monic, suppose for . Pull back along , obtaining an epic and with . Pull back along , obtaining an epic and with . Thenso factors through the kernel pair of . Since coequalizes that pair, , and hence . The composite is epic, so . This proves the regular-epimorphism-monomorphism factorization from kernel pairs.
If is strong, apply its lifting property to :A diagonal satisfies . Since is also monic, , so is an isomorphism and is regular.
For the category of small categories, let have objects , nonidentity arrows and , and no other nonidentity generators. Send it to the ordinal category by identifying with and sending to the two generating arrows. The image generates , so this is a strong epimorphism in the category of small categories, but it is not full because the composite has no preimage; therefore it is not regular.
Every functor factors through the subcategory of its codomain generated by its image. The first functor is strong epic and the inclusion is monic, so strong-epi--mono factorizations always exist in . Regular-epi--mono factorizations do not always exist: the displayed strong nonregular functor would make its monic factor an isomorphism by strongness, forcing the original functor to be regular.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 302 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A Cartan subalgebra of a finite-dimensional complex semisimple Lie algebra is a maximal abelian subalgebra consisting of semisimple elements. The root-space decomposition isand the nonzero functionals are the roots. A Cartan-Weyl basis consists of a basis of and root vectors . Its brackets have the formand when is a root, and zero when is neither a root nor zero.
For the complexified so4 Lie algebra, take and . WriteDirect use of the stated commutation relations givesThe simultaneous eigenvectors, hence the step generators, may be chosen asThus the roots relative to are . Replacing by gives the usual real coordinates . The only nonzero brackets between step generators, apart from those obtained by antisymmetry, are
An isomorphism of Lie algebras is a bijective linear map preserving the Lie bracket. DefineThenThe two spans are commuting copies of the complexified , and together contain all six basis elements of . Chiral decomposition of the complexified so4 Lie algebra therefore givesUnder this isomorphism the Adjoint representation is the direct sum of the adjoint representations of the two factors:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 4 21F a i Solution Created 2026-09-29 Updated 2026-10-03
Suppose and that the interiors of and cover . The Mayer–Vietoris theorem gives the long exact sequence in homologywhere all four displayed maps except the connecting homomorphism are induced by the relevant inclusion maps.
To prove it, let be the chain complex generated by those singular simplices whose images lie wholly in or wholly in . The sequenceis a short exact sequence of chain complexes. Repeated barycentric subdivision makes every singular simplex small enough to lie in or , and the subdivision operator is chain homotopic to the identity. The inclusion therefore induces an isomorphism on every homology group. The long exact homology sequence of a short exact sequence of chain complexes now gives the displayed sequence. Explicitly, if an -cycle with and , then lies in and represents the connecting class .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 151 1 Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Let be a projective resolution of the trivial -module. The projective-resolution definition of group cohomology isThis is independent, up to a natural isomorphism, of the chosen projective resolution.
The degreewise natural isomorphismscommute with the coboundary maps. Taking cohomology proves that group cohomology commutes with finite direct sums:
Now restrict from to a subgroup . The group ring is free as a -module, so restriction carries free modules to free modules and projective modules to projective modules. Thus the restricted complex is a projective resolution of the trivial -module. For the coinduced module , the Hom functor adjunction for a coinduced module gives an isomorphism of cochain complexesExplicitly, a map is sent to ; the inverse sends a -linear map to . Taking cohomology proves Shapiro's lemma:
For the conjugation module of a group ring , the basis is the disjoint union of its conjugacy classes. Hence is the direct sum of the integral permutation modules on those classes. The class of a representative is the transitive -set , where is its centralizer. Since is finite, this permutation module is both induced and coinduced from the trivial -module . Applying group cohomology commutes with finite direct sums and Shapiro's lemma yields the group cohomology of a conjugation module:
The symmetric group has three conjugacy classes, represented by the identity, a transposition, and a three-cycle. Their centralizers are respectivelyFor any finite group acting trivially on ,because a group homomorphism sends an element of finite order to an element of finite order, while the additive group of the integers contains no nonzero torsion elements. ThereforeThe periodic resolution of a finite cyclic group alternates the maps and . After applying with the trivial action, these become alternately zero and multiplication by , provingCombining this calculation with the supplied gives
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 144 1 a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
A complete theory is categorical theory in the infinite cardinal , or -categorical, when it has a model of cardinality and any two of its models of cardinality are isomorphic. Equivalently, has exactly one model of cardinality up to isomorphism.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2025 iii Paper 302 2 b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Identify with the real symmetric matrixFor , define . This linear action preserves , so it defines , and . Its kernel is and it is onto, hence it is a two-to-one covering homomorphism rather than an isomorphism. Consequently .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 101 1 c i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
No. Let be the quiver over a field , and take the representation of a quiverAn endomorphism is a pair of scalar maps satisfying , so its endomorphism ring is . Every nonzero endomorphism is therefore an isomorphism, making this representation a brick module. It nevertheless has the proper nonzero subrepresentation , so it is not an irreducible module.
Equivalently, this is a nonsimple module over the path algebra whose endomorphism ring is a division ring.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2026 iii Paper 133 1 c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Choose a finite generating set for . Under the standard classification of connected covering spaces, each is represented by a based combinatorial loop in . Let be the union of the images of these finitely many finite edge paths. Then is a finite connected subgraph containing .