Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 8 1 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For the isotropic harmonic oscillator flow, Hamilton's equations are , . In dimension three these are three identical uncoupled pairs. For , put , . The solution from at time zero isThe inverse flow is obtained by replacing by :Integrating the source along the backward characteristic gives the Duhamel formula for Hamiltonian transport:Indeed , and setting gives the formula. It has the prescribed initial value and differentiation along the characteristic gives the source.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 8 1 f Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For the globally invertible Hamiltonian flow from (a), the general characteristic formula isEvery preserves Lebesgue measure, by (b). Thus composition with it is an isometry of each Lp space. The Minkowski integral inequality givesApplying the Minkowski inequality also in time yields the finite-time Lp bound for Hamiltonian transport:The smoothness assumptions allow the characteristic construction; the norm estimate itself only uses the Lp space data and volume preservation.
For a concrete failure on infinite time, choose , , andThis is smooth, time independent and in every finite Lp space; it is invariant under the isotropic harmonic oscillator flow. Therefore the solution grows linearly:This invariant-source secular growth in Hamiltonian transport supplies the counterexample even with zero initial data.
Set . Each coordinate satisfies the harmonic oscillator equation, so the general solution isThe four initial data give , , and . ThusThis is the position component of the isotropic harmonic oscillator flow. Substitution also gives the constant energy .
The force law separates into two identical harmonic oscillator equations:For positive , the general real solution isSince by Euler's formula, these are exactly the stated real parts of complex exponentials. The amplitudes and phases are fixed by the four initial position and velocity components. This is two-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator flow: the same angular frequency acts in every direction.