Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2011 ia Paper 1 7B c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 15 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
In cotangent bundle coordinates , the Liouville one-form and the canonical symplectic form areThe twisted cotangent symplectic form is closed: pullback of a differential form commutes with the exterior derivative, soTo prove the form is nondegenerate, write a tangent vector in these coordinates as and test its pairing with an arbitrary vertical vector . The base differential two-form has zero pairing with vertical vectors, henceA vector in the kernel of a linear map therefore has . Pairing it next with every gives , so . Thus the kernel is zero at every point, independently of the size or rank of . Together with closedness, this proves is a symplectic form. The argument is local only for convenience; the nondegenerate property is intrinsic and the coordinate charts cover the whole cotangent bundle.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 ia Paper 1 6A ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
If and , symmetry gives , proving necessity. Conversely, expand in the orthonormal basis from part (i), with . The zero-eigenvalue vectors span the kernel of a linear map. If is orthogonal to that kernel, then whenever , so the remaining coordinates can be solved independently.
For a nonzero eigenvalue and any associated nonzero eigenvector , symmetry gives . Thus the component vector along isFor the unit vectors , this coefficient is . Consequently the general solution isThis proves sufficiency as well as the claimed kernel criterion. If the compatibility condition fails, there is no solution; if it holds, the freedom is exactly an arbitrary kernel vector.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 ib Paper 2 1G Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
For a linear map with finite-dimensional, the rank-nullity theorem statesTo prove it, choose a basis of the kernel of a linear map and use basis extension to obtain as a basis of . The vectors span the image of a linear map: applying to a basis expansion kills the first terms. They are also linearly independent. Indeed, if , then , so it is a combination of . Independence of the full basis forces every . Consequently , proving the theorem.
Here the image of a linear map has dimension , since it lies in . ThusEvery possibility occurs: for , map to . This map has rank and kernel dimension .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ia Paper 1 6C ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Let be the standard basis and define . By linearity,Thus every linear functional has this form. Its representing vector is unique because evaluating at each gives .
For the prescribed kernel of a linear map, the third listed vector is the first minus the second, so it adds no independent constraint. The first two requireTaking and gives , . Consequently all possible representing vectors areConversely, every such vector is perpendicular to each of the three prescribed vectors, so its linear functional vanishes on them. This also includes the zero linear functional.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ia Paper 1 6C i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Write a vector in the domain as . The first and third equations defining the kernel of a linear map imply . Substitution into the second equation then givesFor , this forces , and . HenceThe kernel of a linear map has dimension one, so the rank-nullity theorem gives rank three and proves the assertion about the image of a linear map. Alternatively, the minor formed from columns has determinant , including a nonzero value at .
For , the parameters are free and , . ThusThe third row is the first row minus the second. The image of a linear map is therefore contained in . The first and third columns, and , are linearly independent, so the matrix rank is two and this containment is equality:This is the sole kernel jump in a parameter-dependent linear map; there is no further exceptional case at .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 12 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Apply the polynomial method in combinatorics to the finite-field Kakeya set . We will actually obtain the stronger estimateLet be the vector space over the prime field of multivariate polynomials in variables of total degree of a polynomial at most . By the dimension of a bounded-total-degree polynomial space, its monomial basis consists of with and . Adding a slack exponent gives nonnegative exponents summing to ; the stars and bars count shows thatIf , the evaluation linear map has a nonzero element in its kernel of a linear map. Thus there is a nonzero polynomial of total degree of a polynomial vanishing at every point of . Its degree cannot be zero, since contains a line and is nonempty. Write for its nonzero top homogeneous polynomial part.
For every nonzero , the directional hypothesis supplies an affine line in a vector spaceDirections are one-dimensional vector subspaces; rescaling a representative does not change this line. The univariate polynomial has degree at most and vanishes for all values of . The root bound for a polynomial makes it the zero polynomial. Its coefficient of is exactly , so for every nonzero . Because , too.
To finish, we prove the relevant polynomial nonvanishing below the field size. A polynomial over of degree at most in each variable cannot vanish on all of unless it is zero. Induct on . The one-variable case is the root bound for a polynomial. For more variables, writeFixing the first coordinates gives a univariate polynomial with roots of a polynomial, so all its coefficients are zero. Hence every vanishes on , and the induction hypothesis makes every zero. Applying this to , whose total degree of a polynomial is less than , contradicts its choice as nonzero.
Therefore . Finally,which proves the requested lower bound. The crucial observation in the finite-field Kakeya polynomial bound is that complete lines force the highest homogeneous polynomial part to vanish in every direction.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 3 3 b i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
If an arrow map failed to have maximal matrix rank, it would have both a nonzero kernel of a linear map and a nonzero cokernel. Apply the preceding obstruction with . It would give , contrary to the assumption. Therefore every arrow map is injective or surjective, equivalently its rank is the minimum of the two vertex dimensions. This is a necessary property of a rigid quiver representation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 76 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Choose a fixed positive Landweber relaxation parameter and rearrange the normal equation for a linear inverse problem as the fixed point equationSuccessive substitution gives Landweber iterationSet and . Induction yields the closed polynomial-operator expressionFor the sum is empty, giving zero. The expression is well defined without an inverse of , which can have a kernel of a linear map and an unbounded inverse on its range. Each iterate lies in the closure of , so initialization at zero eliminates the arbitrary null-space component of a solution. The unrelaxed choice gives and the corresponding sum with ; it needs the convergence restriction in part (d).
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ia Paper 1 8C a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Adding the three equations for gives the necessary solvability condition . Conversely, subtraction of the first two and use of the third forceIf , these values also satisfy the first two equations: for example,The analogous calculation gives . Thus existence and uniqueness hold exactly under the stated compatibility condition:
For the three-variable system the matrix and data vector arePerform Gaussian elimination on the augmented matrix. The operations and giveEach operation is an invertible row scaling followed by a row addition, so the solution set is preserved. Next givesBack substitution now yieldsand thenAll three pivots are nonzero. Thus the solution exists uniquely for every , the matrix rank is , and the kernel of a linear map represented by is . The general rank-nullity theorem for a matrix with columns ishere .
Finally, reverse the viewpoint and regard as prescribed. The necessary and sufficient condition already proved applies with , , . Their sum is . Consequently can be recovered exactly whenWhen this holds, their unique values are and . The allowable triples form an affine plane, not all of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ia Paper 1 8C b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A complex square matrix is a unitary matrix when , equivalently . Here denotes the adjoint matrix, the conjugate transpose. Such a matrix preserves the standard complex inner product and its Euclidean norm.
A real symmetric matrix is a Hermitian matrix, so . For arbitrary complex ,The imaginary cross terms cancel because is Hermitian. Reversing the signs gives the same identity:In particular, implies , so has zero kernel of a linear map. It is a square matrix, and the rank-nullity theorem therefore makes it invertible. The same argument proves invertibility of .
The proposed matrixis consequently well-defined. For any , put . The two norm identities show directly thatTo verify the unitary matrix identity explicitly, take adjoints:The two shifts commute, because both are polynomials in . HenceThusThe imaginary shifts are invertible, and their equal norm changes cancel in the quotient. This is the Cayley transform of a Hermitian matrix in the convention.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 335 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Seeking a least-squares solution of a linear inverse problem for the acoustic inverse source problem means minimizing . Its normal equation for a linear inverse problem isFor compatible data, the formal minimum-norm solution can be written with the Moore–Penrose inverse of an operator:The inverse in this expression is defined on the range of the restricted operator, not as a bounded everywhere-defined inverse. The unrestricted expression is only formal because has a nontrivial kernel of a linear map.
The normal kernel of the source-to-far-field operator can be computed explicitly:The quotient is at coincidence. This smooth kernel already exhibits the loss of information.
There are two distinct causes of ill-posedness. First, a fixed-frequency nonradiating source gives exact nonuniqueness. For any , putThe outgoing solution is , which vanishes outside , so . Equivalently, integration by parts in the source-to-far-field operator at fixed frequency givessince the exponential solves the homogeneous Helmholtz equation and the boundary terms vanish. This provides an infinite-dimensional family of invisible sources. Single-frequency data determine only the spherical restriction of a three-dimensional Fourier transform.
Second, the compact operator has arbitrarily small nonzero singular values. To see that its rank is infinite, choose a source , with a spherical harmonic . The plane-wave angular integral givesThe Spherical Bessel function is not identically zero, so choose to obtain a nonzero far-field coefficient for every . The mutually orthogonal angular modes prove infinite rank. The inverse on is therefore unbounded, and division by these small singular values amplifies noise. Its range is not closed; arbitrary noisy data need not be the far-field pattern of a source, and a least-squares solution need not exist without regularization of an inverse problem. For example, Tikhonov regularization gives . It stabilizes the recovered visible component but cannot identify the missing fixed-frequency nonradiating source component.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 335 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A regularization of an inverse problem replaces the possibly unbounded inverse by a family of continuous reconstruction operators . For compatible exact data it must recover the minimum-norm solution as . For noisy data , a parameter rule must make both bias and amplified noise tend to zero. The target is the minimum-norm solution because data cannot determine a component in the kernel of a linear map.
Tikhonov regularization minimizesThe quadratic norm penalty makes this functional strictly convex and a coercive function. Its first variation, applied to arbitrary real and imaginary perturbations, givesThe positive operator is bounded below by and has a bounded inverse. The unique Tikhonov regularization solution isThe Tikhonov stability bound follows from the singular-value gain:Thus reconstruction is stable for each fixed positive . Stability is not uniform as : that limit restores the unbounded inverse. For exact compatible data,The singular system of a compact operator makes this strong convergence transparent: each positive singular-value coefficient tends to zero and is bounded by the corresponding coefficient of . Consequentlywhenever and , for example . This is a convergent regularization of an inverse problem, not merely a bounded formula.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ib Paper 2 1F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
For a linear map with a finite-dimensional vector space, the rank-nullity theorem isChoose a basis of the kernel of a linear map and extend it to a basis of . The vectors span the image of a linear map, because the kernel basis contributes zero. If , then belongs to the kernel and is a combination of the ; independence of the extended basis makes every . Thus the image basis has elements and , proving the theorem.
For a rank-two map on , the direct sum occurs for : its kernel is and its image is . It fails for : the kernel is , contained in the two-dimensional image . The rank-nullity theorem fixes the sum of the dimensions, but does not imply zero intersection.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 129 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Work in positive dimension . A cap set has no distinct zero-sum triple. Over the finite field , if two elements of a zero-sum triple agree then all three agree, since . Thus a zero-sum triple in a cap set must be diagonal. We prove the Ellenberg–Gijswijt cap-set bound by the polynomial method in combinatorics, keeping the exponential constant explicit and removing the fixed prefactor.
First prove the needed slice rank of a diagonal tensor over any field. The slice rank of a three-variable tensor is the least number of terms in a decomposition of the forms , , and . A diagonal tensor on a set of cardinality , with every diagonal entry nonzero, has slice rank at most by one slice for each entry. For the reverse inequality, suppose a decomposition has slices in the direction, in the direction, and in the direction, with . LetThe rank-nullity theorem gives . The maximum-support vector in a finite-dimensional subspace lemma supplies with at least nonzero coordinates: choose of maximum support of a vector; restriction must be injective, or adding a nonzero kernel of a linear map element would strictly enlarge that support of a vector. This argument is valid over finite fields, without any assumption that a generic vector avoids all coordinate hyperplanes.
Contract the proposed tensor decomposition in against . The diagonal tensor becomes a diagonal matrix of matrix rank at least . All slices vanish. Each remaining or slice becomes a matrix of matrix rank at most one, so subadditivity of matrix rank gives matrix rank at most , a contradiction. Therefore the slice rank of a diagonal tensor is exactly .
Now, for a cap set , consider the polynomialEach factor is one when its argument is zero and zero otherwise, because the two nonzero elements of have square one. Thus is the indicator function of . Restricted to , it is a diagonal tensor with every diagonal entry one, and its slice rank is .
Every monomial in the expansion has individual exponents at most two and total polynomial degree at most . Consequently at least one of its , , or blocks has polynomial degree at most . Assign each monomial to one such block, breaking ties in a fixed way, and collect assigned terms by the monomial in that block. Each collection is a slice. Ifthere are at most slices in each direction. Thus .
The low-degree monomial count for the cap-set bound follows directly from a weighted sum. Each exponent vector counted by satisfies , soThis supplies its own elementary exponential estimate; no unstated probabilistic estimate is required. Since , we have , but alone would leave a fixed prefactor.
Use Cartesian powers of cap sets to remove that prefactor. The -fold Cartesian product is still a cap set: in each block, a zero-sum triple of its elements must have all three entries equal. Hence . Taking th roots and letting tend to infinity proves the removal of an exponential prefactor by Cartesian powers:The strict middle inequality follows by cubing: . We can therefore takeFor every , a set with cannot be a cap set, and hence contains the required distinct triple. If zero dimension were included, the singleton would be another small-case exception; positive dimension is the convention used here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ia Paper 1 8B a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The determinant factors asThus for , the kernel is and the inhomogeneous system has exactly one solution.
At , row reduction givesand the augmented matrix has the same rank two as , so there are infinitely many solutions. At ,but the augmented matrix has rank three while has rank two, so there is no solution. Therefore the number of solutions is
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2021 ib Paper 4 8E a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
A Hermitian form is a sesquilinear form such thatUse the convention that is linear in its first argument and conjugate-linear in its second. Its matrix in the basis isIf and , then
Since , the coordinate row of each new basis vector is a row of . Direct substitution givesso the new matrix is
The subspace is the radical of . In coordinates it is the kernel of , and the rank-nullity theorem gives
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 343 4 a Solution 2026-09-28
For the injective translationally invariant case, the fundamental theorem of matrix product states states that two tensors and of the same minimal bond dimension generate the same periodic MPS for every sufficiently large length if and only iffor every physical index , with one invertible matrix . Equality as normalized rays permits the phase ; equality as vectors for all lengths restricts the resulting factor accordingly. The converse is immediate from cyclicity of the matrix trace:
For the nontrivial direction, block enough sites that both tensors are injective and definewith defined similarly. Injectivity means that and have trivial kernels. Equality of all sufficiently long periodic states implies equality of the local support spaces , so there is an invertible linear map on the virtual matrix algebra satisfying
Compare two adjacent blocks and contract arbitrary environments on their left and right. Because both block maps are injective, equality of the physical contractions forcesThus is a unital algebra automorphism of . By every automorphism of a full matrix algebra is inner, for an invertible . Applying this relation to a block with one physical site exposed givesThis proves the theorem and identifies the freedom as the gauge equivalence of injective matrix product state tensors. For noninjective tensors, their canonical forms first split into injective blocks; equality then permits a permutation of equivalent blocks together with a similarity transformation and phase on each block.
Projection (linear algebra) 2026-10-06
A linear projection is an idempotent linear operator: . Every vector decomposes as , into the image of a linear map and the kernel of a linear map. Those two vector subspaces form a direct sum. An orthogonal projection additionally uses the orthogonal complement in an inner-product space.