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Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 38 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let . The feasible probability simplex is a nonempty compact convex set, so the extreme value theorem guarantees a minimizer. Its Hessian matrix is diagonal with positive entries , making a strictly convex function. Hence the minimizer is unique.
Use the Lagrange multipliers for the sum constraint and for . The Lagrangian isThe KKT conditions areA strictly positive feasible allocation exists, so the Slater condition holds. These conditions are necessary and sufficient for this convex optimization. At least one coordinate is positive, giving . Put . For a positive coordinate, complementary slackness gives . At a zero coordinate, stationarity gives , or . ThusHere . This logarithmic water filling raises the smaller baseline values to a common level. The scalar left side is a continuous function and strictly increasing above , starts at zero, and tends to infinity, so exactly one solves it. One can find it by interval bisection, or sort the baseline values increasingly and find an index for whichusing . Equality at the next baseline simply gives a zero allocation. Sorting and a running sum implement the water-filling algorithm in time.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 43 2 Solution 2026-10-07
Use the usual normalization of the Super-Poincaré algebra, with and under the corresponding index convention:The supercharges are odd operators: they turn bosonic states into fermionic states and vice versa. If is fermion parity, this statement is , soThe same relation holds for the conjugate supercharges.
For a finite-dimensional physical supermultiplet at fixed four-momentum with energy , let count physical bosonic and fermionic states. Cyclicity of the ordinary trace and the parity anticommutation implySumming over the two spinor indices givesThis supertrace pairing at positive energy proves boson-fermion degeneracy in a supermultiplet for massive as well as massless positive-energy representations. It counts on-shell polarizations, not merely the names of fields. The requirement matters: a zero-energy supersymmetric vacuum can be a bosonic singlet without a paired fermionic vacuum.
If supersymmetry-breaking operators are explicitly added to the Lagrangian, the original supercharges generally no longer commute with the full Hamiltonian. They are not conserved symmetries generating finite fixed-energy physical supermultiplets; their original anticommutator does not equal the full translation generator with the breaking terms included. Thus the step replacing the parity-weighted anticommutator by on a closed physical representation fails. The odd parity relation alone does not force energy degeneracy or an equal number of physical states at each mass.
This is explicit versus spontaneous supersymmetry breaking. In spontaneous breaking the action still has conserved supercharges, but the vacuum is not annihilated by them. Acting on particle excitations about that vacuum involves the broken-vacuum/Goldstino sector, so an ordinary finite particle multiplet above an invariant vacuum is no longer the correct pairing argument. The vacuum-energy statements below refer to an exact globally supersymmetric Hamiltonian, including the spontaneously broken case; they are not positivity claims for an arbitrary explicitly broken Hamiltonian.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 45 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Assume and . The vacuum manifold is the sphere . Choose . For the given generators, whereas and are nonzero and independent. The Adjoint representation of SU(2) rotates this sphere, and the full connected stabilizer subgroup of is generated by . Hence the classical symmetry pattern isThe central element of SU(2) acts trivially on the triplet and belongs to this stabilizer; it does not add a separate broken direction. The gauge-field-free representative has zero gauge field strength and constant scalar magnitude. Locally near this nonzero classical vacuum, unitary gauge aligns the triplet along the third axis.
First make the gauge normalization explicit. Write the gauge kinetic term as , where if is the matrix used inside the printed trace. Canonical normalization of a gauge kinetic term givesFor a conventionally normalized component trace, and . If the trace is the ordinary matrix trace in the displayed three-dimensional representation, and . The PDF does not specify which trace convention is intended; both are covered by this formula.
In unitary gauge, the gauge covariant derivative isExpanding this kinetic term and the scalar potential gives the complete physical-field LagrangianHere a square of a vector means its contraction with the Minkowski metric, in signature . The labels 1 and 2 represent massive vectors; 3 represents the surviving Abelian vector.
To display their charge and all interactions more clearly, put , , and defineWith the sign of gauge field strength printed in the paper, and . Thus the same Lagrangian becomesThe physical masses areIn particular, literal adjoint matrix trace gives ; the standard canonical component convention gives . These are descriptions with differently normalized couplings, not different physical spectra.
The complex vector pair carries opposite charges under the unbroken U(1) gauge symmetry. The gauge field strength terms contain cubic interactions, quartic interactions, and four-vector interactions involving the charged fields. There is no pure Abelian cubic or quartic self-interaction. The Higgs mode has cubic and quartic scalar interactions and couples through . It is neutral and has no tree-level interaction. This is the physical charged-vector Lagrangian for an adjoint SU2 Higgs model.
If the angular fields and were retained, their vanishing potential masses would identify the two Goldstone bosons of the ungauged triplet. In the gauge theory they mix with the broken-direction gauge fields and can be removed by gauge fixing; the Higgs mechanism uses them as the longitudinal polarizations of the two massive vectors. They are not additional physical massless scalars. The physical degrees of freedom are conserved: before rearrangement, and afterwards.
This is not the Standard Model electroweak interaction. It has three original gauge bosons, leaving two massive charged vectors and one massless neutral vector, with no massive neutral Z boson. The Standard Model instead has , a complex Higgs doublet, and three massive vectors plus the photon. Its charge is , not just the surviving . Adding fermions cannot supply the missing gauge generator or turn the surviving neutral vector into both a photon and a Z boson. In particular, the usual right-handed fermions in the Standard Model are SU(2) singlets; they would have zero charge if only were available, instead of the charges produced by hypercharge.