Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 328 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The drift makes the natural measure weighted. LetUnder homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions, the differential operator is self-adjoint in the weighted inner product . Indeed integration by parts giveswhen the derivative boundary terms vanish. In particular its eigenvalues are nonpositive and it has the constant stationary eigenfunction. We first construct the weighted Neumann heat kernel with constant drift, then incorporate the two prescribed coordinate derivatives.
Put . The Robin gauge transform for constant drift, , turns intoThese are coordinate-derivative Robin boundary conditions, with the same algebraic sign at both endpoints. The left condition for an oscillatory solution of wavenumber gives . The right condition then reduces to , giving . There is also a separate mode , , which must not be discarded by restricting to oscillatory . For , write : the endpoint determinant reduces to , leaving only that zero mode. At , the linear solution satisfies both endpoint conditions only if it vanishes, because . The complete Sturm-Liouville eigenfunction expansion therefore usesTheir squared norms in the weighted measure areThe cancellation of the weight against makes the latter formula an ordinary trigonometric integral. DefineFor this kernel is smooth in the interior. It integrates initial values against , not against unweighted Lebesgue measure. It is symmetric in as a weighted kernel, even though the drift operator does not look symmetric in an unweighted inner product.
To determine the boundary forcing, set . Two applications of integration by parts leaveThe minus sign at the left endpoint is the sign of the boundary evaluation ; the supplied is , not an outward normal derivative. Solving this linear differential equation by an integrating factor and recombining the modes gives the requested space-time integral representation:This is the Neumann boundary-forcing formula. The zero mode also gives the useful consistency checkOrdinary unweighted mass instead obeys . Replacing the weighted measure by or deleting the constant mode would therefore give an incorrect solution.
There is a subtle point when checking nonzero derivative data: every homogeneous eigenfunction has zero endpoint derivative, but differentiating the boundary-forcing sum and its time integral term by term at an endpoint is not valid. The kernel is singular as , and the prescribed derivatives are interior limits of the full solution. An explicit Laplace transform form verifies those limits without this interchange and gives an alternative purely contour-integral version.
For , set using the principal square root, and defineBoth solve , with , . Their weighted Wronskian is the nonzero constantHence the resolvent kernel for Neumann advection-diffusion on an interval isThe first derivative in has jump , giving in the sense of distributional derivatives. If and , an equivalent transformed solution isIn fact and , so and exactly. The inverse Bromwich contour integral of is an alternative final answer. Its poles at and reproduce the constant and decaying modes of , respectively; apparent square-root singularities in the normalized hyperbolic factors are removable. This also independently checks the kernel normalization and boundary signs.
As in question 1, the printed dot on denotes its spatial derivative: the two corner conditions are and . The initial eigenfunction expansion converges to in the weighted space and, for the stated smooth compatible data, has the appropriate classical initial and boundary limits. Differences of solutions with zero data satisfy , proving uniqueness in the usual regular solution class. In the limit , , , and the ordinary Neumann heat kernel on an interval and its boundary signs are recovered.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 340 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Take the indicator function inside . For a compactly supported test vector field, integration in and then givesThe vertical derivative term integrates to zero. The absolute pairing is at most one, and test vector fields with along all but arbitrarily short endpoint pieces approach one. Thus . More explicitly, the distributional derivative is , where is Hausdorff measure along the segment. Also .
A Sobolev space function in has each weak derivative represented by an density with respect to planar Lebesgue measure. The nonzero segment measure here is singular with respect to that measure, so this requirement fails. Equivalently, the Sobolev fundamental theorem of calculus on lines would require an absolutely continuous representative on almost every horizontal slice, whereas each slice has a jump. ThereforeThis is the bounded-variation step outside W11 example.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ii Paper 4 25J d i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The map swaps each adjacent pair of binary digits: . Canonical expansions with no eventual all-ones tail remain canonical under this swap, and .
Under Lebesgue measure, any specified values of distinct binary digits have probability . Indeed they describe a union of dyadic intervals at the largest of the specified positions, with that total length. The preimage of a cylinder prescribing its first output digits prescribes distinct input digits and therefore has the same measure. The half-open dyadic intervals, with the empty set, form a pi-system generating the Borel sigma-algebra. Apply the preceding uniqueness result to obtainThe choice of binary expansion matters at dyadic endpoints for the map's pointwise definition; the chosen convention removes that ambiguity and those endpoints are null in the measure calculation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 108 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the probability-system convention . The Birkhoff ergodic theorem, also called the pointwise ergodic theorem, states that for a measure-preserving system and ,where is the invariant sigma-algebra. The limit is integrable and has the same integral as . On a probability space the convergence also holds in , as in the allowed mean ergodic theorem. If is an ergodic transformation, is trivial modulo null sets, giving
The integer multiplication map on the circle preserves Lebesgue measure: for any integrable on ,To prove the ergodicity of integer multiplication on the circle, suppose satisfies . Let be its Fourier coefficients in the Fourier basis . Since , the Fourier coefficients of at index are zero if does not divide , and are otherwise. This identity holds for all functions by approximation with trigonometric polynomials and the isometry . Invariance givesEvery nonzero integer can be divided by only finitely often. Thus for every , and completeness of the Fourier basis makes constant almost everywhere. Applying this to the indicator function of an invariant set gives measure zero or one, so
A normal number in base has every word of base- digits occurring with limiting overlapping frequency . Use the expansion that is not eventually equal to when there are two expansions. The word corresponds to the half-open intervalA word starting at position occurs exactly when . The Birkhoff ergodic theorem, applied to , gives frequency almost everywhere. There are countably many pairs , so their full-measure sets have a full-measure intersection. In particular,These are absolutely normal numbers, so existence follows as well. This interval description also proves normality and equidistribution under integer multiplication: the base- intervals form arbitrarily fine grids, so their frequencies imply the correct frequency for every interval by approximation from inside and outside.
For the growth assertion, put . For every , the Tonelli theorem gives the useful summability boundSince is a measure-preserving transformation, . The first Borel-Cantelli lemma shows that occurs only finitely often almost everywhere. Intersecting the resulting full-measure sets for proves the linear growth bound for integrable observables, . Multiplication by then gives
The threshold is sharp. For , choose with , and take the Bernoulli shift on with the product measure of independent uniform coordinates. The left shift preserves that measure because it preserves the probability of every finite-coordinate event. Define ; it is integrable becauseThe variables are independent. For any fixed ,The probability sum diverges, so the second Borel-Cantelli lemma makes these events occur infinitely often almost surely. Intersecting over positive integer even yields . For , the constant observable already fails to give limit zero. Thus the sharpness of the linear growth bound for integrable observables gives
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 108 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The Rudolph measure rigidity theorem has an essential ergodicity hypothesis. If a Borel probability measure on the circle group is invariant under both and , is ergodic for the semigroup generated jointly by these maps, and either map has positive Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, thenEquivalently, a jointly ergodic common invariant measure other than Lebesgue measure has zero entropy for both maps. Joint ergodicity means that every set invariant modulo under both maps has measure zero or one. Positive entropy without this hypothesis is insufficient: , with a Dirac measure, is a common invariant measure of positive entropy and is not .
The Host equidistribution theorem states that if are relatively prime integers and is invariant and ergodic under , with , then for -almost every the sequence is an equidistributed sequence for Lebesgue measure. Explicitly, for every continuous on the circle,The non-ergodic form assumes invariance and positive entropy for almost every component in the ergodic decomposition . Applying the ergodic theorem of Host on each such component gives the same almost-everywhere conclusion for . More generally, its conclusion holds on the part supported on positive-entropy components. A positive value of alone does not eliminate zero-entropy components.
To deduce the joint version of the Rudolph measure rigidity theorem, suppose ; if only has positive entropy, interchange the roles. Write the ergodic decomposition as . Since commutes with , its pushforward measure sends a ergodic component to a ergodic component . On each component, is a factor of a measure-preserving system with fibres of size at most three. We use the standard entropy preservation under a finite-to-one factor:The reason for this standard entropy fact is that, conditional on a complete factor point, every finite orbit name has at most three possibilities; its conditional entropy is bounded by , and division by the orbit length gives zero relative entropy.
The component at is almost everywhere; this follows from commutation and the componentwise ergodic averages. The component entropy function is therefore invariant under both and . Joint ergodicity makes it constant almost everywhere, and affinity of entropy under ergodic decomposition identifies the constant as . Thus almost every component has positive entropy, exactly the condition required in the non-ergodic Host equidistribution theorem. It follows that -almost every point equidistributes for under .
For any continuous , invariance under and the dominated convergence theorem now giveContinuous functions determine Borel probability measures on the circle, so , proving the deduction.
For the normal-number example, let be independent fair binary digits and defineThis Cantor Bernoulli measure is supported on the middle-third Cantor set . If is the Bernoulli shift, then on the circle. Consequently is invariant and ergodic: a invariant event pulls back to an invariant event, which has probability zero or one.
Take the ternary digit measurable partition . Its block partition of length has, up to null endpoints, positive-measure atoms under , each of measure , and all other atoms have measure zero. HenceApply the Host equidistribution theorem with , . For -almost every , the sequence equidistributes for Lebesgue measure, so is a normal number in base by normality and equidistribution under integer multiplication.
The ternary expansion of -almost every such contains only and , so the frequency of digit is zero rather than . The ambiguous ternary endpoints form a countable null set and can be removed. Therefore is not a normal number in base . We have proved the stronger almost-everywhere existence statement
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 207 1 a ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let count all jumps of the continuous-time Markov chain. Its Markov-chain entry count into state isThusThis is a Lebesgue-Stieltjes integral against a counting process, so each jump contributes one. The initial occupation of state is not counted as an entry. An ordinary time integral of an indicator random variable asserting a jump at exactly time would be zero, since individual jump times have zero Lebesgue measure. The requested integral must therefore use this counting-measure interpretation. Assume non-explosion and finite expected jump counts on bounded intervals, as holds for a finite-state continuous-time Markov chain.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 216 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For the planar uniform distribution with a Lebesgue measure density, assume that the compact convex set has nonempty interior, equivalently positive area. This assumption is missing from the wording: a line segment or singleton would not have such a planar uniform density.
The hit-and-run sampler at a current point chooses with uniform on , finds the intervaland samples uniformly on that interval, setting . Convexity makes the intersection an interval and compactness makes it bounded.
If is in the interior, every direction has positive chord length, and the next point is in the interior almost surely. For a definition valid at every boundary point as well, redraw the direction whenever the chord has zero length. We use this convention in the following parts. Positive-length directions have positive angular probability at every , since an interior ball is visible from , so the redraw terminates almost surely.
The Markov kernel has the uniform distribution on as its invariant law, as follows from the density symmetry proved next. Repeating the step therefore produces approximate uniform samples after convergence. The boundary convention matters: if singleton chords were instead treated as holding moves, a square's corner would have a positive atom at its starting point, contradicting part (b)'s claim of an everywhere absolutely continuous kernel.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 216 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write and letThis is the accepted fraction of directions when zero-length chords are redrawn; it equals one in the interior. The Markov kernel integrates a test function asThe signed polar representation has Jacobian determinant . Each point is represented twice, once with positive and once with negative and the opposite direction. Since the chord is the same in either representation, the hit-and-run kernel density isfor almost every , and it is zero outside the body. Thus the transition is absolutely continuous with respect to planar Lebesgue measure. Redrawing removes the only potential zero-chord atoms.
Let . For distinct , the chord contains their segment, so it has positive length, andHence . Values on the diagonal, and on other null sets where a density is only specified almost everywhere, can be assigned this same lower bound. This gives a version satisfyingFor interior , and the chord length is unchanged on interchanging its endpoints, so . A convex body's boundary has area zero; for example contractions about an interior point fill the interior and their areas tend to the body's area. Thus this symmetry holds almost everywhere for two uniform points, proving detailed balance and stationarity of the uniform distribution. Without positive area or the boundary convention in part (a), the literal assertion need not hold.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 3 26J b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
A set is Lebesgue measurable if it satisfies the Caratheodory criterionfor every , where is Lebesgue outer measure. Equivalently, belongs to the completion of the Borel sigma-algebra with respect to Lebesgue measure.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 3 26J c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The rational numbers are countable, sois a countable union of closed sets and hence a Borel set; its Lebesgue measure is zero. Its complement is also Borel and has infinite measure:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 3 26J f Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Let . Both and its translate lie in an interval of length . By finite additivity and translation invariance of Lebesgue measure,Choose . Then and , so . Therefore the difference-set overlap bound on an interval gives
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 4 26J c Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Take the unit circle with its Borel sigma-algebra and normalized Lebesgue measure, and letThis is the doubling map. Its two inverse branches halve length, so Lebesgue invariance of the doubling map gives . Moreoverfor every point of the circle.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 109 4 Solution 2026-10-03
A multiset of subsets of is a uniform cover of multiplicity when each coordinate occurs in exactly members. The uniform covers theorem states that every Euclidean body satisfieswhere is the coordinate projection of a Euclidean body onto the coordinates in .
We prove it by induction on . Split the cover into , whose members omit , and , whose members contain . Exactly members lie in . For a last-coordinate value , let be the corresponding slice. Removing from the members of and retaining the members of gives a -uniform cover of . The inductive hypothesis and Fubini's theorem giveApply Hölder's inequality to the factors in the integral. Sincewe obtain , which is the result after taking the th power. The one-dimensional base case is immediate.
The Bollobas--Thomason box theorem states that for every body there is an axis-parallel box such thatAn irreducible uniform cover cannot be decomposed into two smaller uniform covers. There are only finitely many such covers of : encode a cover by its multiplicity vector in and apply the Dickson lemma.
Choose a componentwise minimal positive array satisfyingfor every irreducible -uniform cover , together withThe actual projection volumes are feasible by the uniform covers theorem, and finiteness gives a minimal array. Every uniform cover is a disjoint union of irreducible ones, so its cover inequality also holds for this array.
Minimality implies that, for each coordinate , some tight uniform-cover inequality can be chosen whose cover contains the singleton . Indeed, either such an inequality already blocks decreasing , or a tight product inequality does; in the latter case take a tight cover containing and replace that occurrence of by its singleton coordinates. Let these tight covers be , of multiplicities , and let . Their multiset union is a -uniform cover. Removing one copy of every singleton leaves a -uniform cover, so comparison of its cover inequality with the product of all the tight equalities yieldsThe singleton cover gives the reverse inequality, henceFor any , the one-uniform cover consisting of and the singletons for now gives . The defining product inequality gives the reverse bound. Thus all these quantities are equal. Taking the side lengths of to be proves the theorem.
Finally suppose that the proper body satisfiesThis is equality in the three-dimensional Loomis--Whitney inequality. In its proof, equality must hold in both applications of Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Their equality conditions force the three projection indicators to factor through one-dimensional measurable sets , and forceup to a set of Lebesgue measure zero; this is Equality in the three-dimensional Loomis--Whitney inequality.
Because is connected, each one-coordinate projection is connected and hence is an interval. Because is a finite union of positive-volume axis-parallel boxes, a proper difference between and the product of those three intervals would contain a positive-volume rectangular cell in a common finite subdivision. That would contradict equality up to measure zero. Consequently the equality is exact and
For compact , letBy the Tonelli theorem and part (ii),Every point in the SLE range has conformal radius tending to zero and therefore belongs to every . Hence the range inside has zero expected Lebesgue measure, and so has zero measure almost surely. Exhausting by countably many compact sets proves
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 348 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write , the absolute Jacobian determinant. Under the usual meaning of a map on domains, the injective area formula gives, for any nonnegative measurable ,This version of the change of variables formula does not require to be nonsingular everywhere. A map is a locally Lipschitz function, and the formula applies by exhaustion if the domains are unbounded. For non-open , one needs the corresponding extension or regularity interpretation of the stated assumption.
First suppose almost everywhere with respect to Lebesgue measure. For each bounded nonnegative measurable ,Taking indicator functions proves .
Conversely, the area formula shows that the measure with probability density function has total mass one and satisfies . The assumed equality then implies , since the measurable bijection has a measurable inverse on these domains. Equivalently, apply both pushforward measure identities to for each Borel set . Uniqueness of the Radon-Nikodym derivative yields
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 348 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A standard sufficient form of Brenier theorem assumes have finite second moments and , that is, absolute continuity of measures with respect to Lebesgue measure. For the cost , there exists a unique optimal transport plan, and it is induced by a transport map:Here is a proper convex function, which may be chosen sequentially lower semicontinuous, and its gradient exists -almost everywhere. The map is unique -almost everywhere and is the unique minimizer of the Monge optimal transport problem; its cost equals the Kantorovich optimal transport problem minimum. Equivalently, it is the unique gradient of a convex function transporting to .
The uniqueness claim concerns the map and the transport plan, not a globally unique potential. The potential may be shifted by a constant, and additional nonuniqueness away from the source can occur. No density assumption is required on . A primary reference is Brenier's Polar factorization and monotone rearrangement of vector-valued functions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 350 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let be the probability density function of the unknown and that of the noise, both relative to Lebesgue measure. By independence of random variables, the conditional distribution of the measurement given has density . Thus its likelihood function and the joint density areThe Bayesian model evidence is the marginal data densityBayes theorem gives the posterior density solving this Bayesian inverse problem:This formula applies when . Since by Tonelli theorem, these conditions hold almost everywhere under the marginal data law. Values of a conditional distribution at exceptional data are not determined by the joint law. The posterior mean or a maximum a posteriori estimate can then give a point estimate, while the full posterior density describes the remaining uncertainty.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 350 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the Hellinger distance convention in the original PDF:The TeX transcription incorrectly places the integral outside the outer square root in the definition; the displayed formula for the squared distance and the original PDF both use the convention above. Although Lebesgue measure is not a probability measure, we may use it as the common dominating measure: the integral is unchanged by replacing it with any equivalent dominating probability measure.
For unit-variance normal distributions, put and . The product of the square roots of their probability density functions isThe final factor integrates to one, soFor the bound at arbitrary , use the given formula for the Hellinger distance between normal distributions and writeSince for ,Therefore one valid choice is . In particular this bound is uniform when the two standard deviations stay bounded away from zero.