Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 ib Paper 1 9G i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
If , the generated subspace is zero and invariant. Otherwise, let be the first index for which are linearly dependent. Such an index exists with , since there are vectors. The preceding vectors are independent, so the coefficient of in this first relation cannot vanish. HenceThe linear operator sends each of the first generators to the next and sends the last into their span. This proves that their span is an invariant subspace. Every later iterate lies in the same subspace by induction, so it equals the span of the first iterates. Therefore the indicated subspace is -invariant. This proof of a cyclic subspace uses only finite dimension and linear dependence.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 64 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Apply the direct method in the calculus of variations to . Since , take a minimizing sequence with . ThenThus the sequence is bounded in the bounded-variation space. The bounded-variation compactness gives a subsequence converging in the strong convergence sense in to . Boundedness of the linear operator gives strongly in , so the residual norm converges. The variation term is sequentially lower semicontinuous, henceTherefore attains the infimum. The useful inverse hypothesis is the lower bound ; a bounded inverse on the range already suffices for this proof. No uniqueness follows from the nonsquared fidelity.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 72 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For a bounded linear operator between Hilbert spaces, let and . The Moore–Penrose inverse of an operator is defined onFor , with , defineThis is independent of the chosen preimage , since two preimages differ by a vector in . Equivalently, it is the inverse of the restriction of to , applied to the component of the data in , and is zero on .
The generalized solution is the unique minimum-norm least-squares solution. Its residual is orthogonal to the range, giving the operator normal equationThe operator normal equation alone leaves an arbitrary null-space component; the second condition fixes the minimum-norm representative. The identities and hold on their appropriate domains.
For an infinite-rank compact operator, the range need not be closed, and is generally unbounded. Data outside need not have any least-squares solution at all, even though they can be approximated by range elements. This domain qualification is crucial in part (d); the Moore–Penrose notation does not turn an ill-posed inverse into an everywhere-defined bounded operator.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 7 3 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
On each finite interval use the Banach space with the supremum norm. The free term belongs to , and the time-integral operator maps to itself with norm at most . The strongly continuous semigroup property and boundedness of justify continuity of the Bochner integral.
DefineThe factorial bound for a Volterra iterate gives . The series therefore converges absolutely in . Since is a bounded linear operator on , it can be passed through the convergent sum, givingThus , the required integral formulation, and . Each term on a larger interval restricts to the identical term on a smaller interval, so these constructions define a single global solution without having to restart at successive times. This is an integrable Volterra solution for normalized velocity relaxation. It is a mild solution of an abstract Cauchy problem in and hence an weak solution in the paper's integral-formulation sense. No smallness condition such as is needed.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 3 10F ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
We prove the finite-dimensional spectral theorem for normal operators by induction on dimension. A complex linear operator has an eigenvector with eigenvalue , by the fundamental theorem of algebra. For a normal operator , the operator is also normal, andfor every . Applying this to shows .
Normalize . Its orthogonal complement is invariant under both and : the adjoint operator identities pair with through , and with through . The restricted operator on remains normal, and its adjoint is the restriction of . Induction supplies an orthonormal eigenbasis of , which together with gives one for .
Conversely, in an orthonormal basis of eigenvectors, is diagonal and is the diagonal matrix of the conjugate eigenvalues. The two diagonal operators commute. Thus normality is equivalent to an orthonormal eigenbasis. The zero-dimensional case is immediate.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 4 6B a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
The orbital angular momentum linear operator is the cross product of the position operator and the momentum operator:In position space, , so . The Levi-Civita symbol gives and its cyclic analogues.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 323 1 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The useful object is the Choi state of the entanglement-breaking channel. Put , introduce a reference with the same computational basis as , and use the normalized maximally entangled stateThe entanglement-breaking channel makes a separable quantum state. Its partial trace is , because is a quantum channel. Write a separable positive operator decompositionDiscard any term with : a positive operator with zero trace is zero. DefineEach is a density operator. Each is a positive operator, and taking the matrix transpose of the partial trace identity givesThus the form a POVM. In this reference-first convention, the Choi reconstruction formula isThe factor is essential because we used a normalized Choi state. A measurement channel storing the outcome , followed by the prescribed quantum state preparation of , has precisely this action on every linear operator . The desired factorization is therefore
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 323 4 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Write . Normalization says , and the Schmidt rank equals the matrix rank of . Its nonzero singular values are therefore with .
The overlap with the maximally entangled state is . The trace norm estimate of Q3(i), with test linear operator , followed by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, givesFor two pure states, the unsquared quantum fidelity is the absolute value of their overlap. Hence the maximally entangled overlap bound from Schmidt rank isThe bound is attained by . Thus uniform Schmidt coefficients on aligned basis pairs give the greatest possible overlap for that Schmidt rank.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 ib Paper 4 11E a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The structure theorem for finitely generated modules over a principal ideal domain applies in particular to a Euclidean domain : every finitely generated module has an isomorphismwith each nonzero and a nonunit. The rank of a free module and the invariant factors of a finitely generated module are unique up to multiplication by units; empty sums are allowed. This is the classification theorem being used, without a proof of that theorem.
The rational canonical form theorem states that for a linear operator on a finite-dimensional vector space over any field , there are unique monic nonconstant polynomials such that some basis givesHere, for , the companion matrix has ones on its subdiagonal and last column . The empty matrix covers a zero-dimensional space. Two linear operators have matrix similarity exactly when they have the same invariant factors of a linear operator.
For the proof, make an -module by . It is a finitely generated module, since a vector-space basis also generates it as a module. It is a torsion module: the powers of have linear dependence in the finite-dimensional space , so some nonzero polynomial annihilates every vector. Because is a Euclidean domain, the classification theorem givesThere is no free summand, since a nonzero free module over is not a torsion module. Choose monic generators of the ideals. On , the classes of form an -basis by polynomial division. Multiplication by is exactly in that basis, proving existence. Uniqueness in the classification theorem proves uniqueness of the rational canonical form. Finally, an -module isomorphism is precisely an invertible -linear map intertwining the operators, establishing the assertion about matrix similarity. In particular the characteristic polynomial is and the minimal polynomial is for nonzero .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 337 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Eliminate the instantaneous Stokes flow velocity in favour of temperature. On a horizontal Fourier mode , the Stokes temperature-slaving operator maps to , where and . The temperature evolution has linear operator and bilinear map . Under the homogeneous thermal Dirichlet boundary conditions, is self-adjoint. Normalize its critical eigenfunction as and set ; the critical vertical velocity is .
At order , the critical eigenfunction equation gives . At order , the weakly nonlinear expansion contains the imposed second harmonic and the quadratic products of the critical mode: a horizontally uniform temperature correction proportional to and, in a general vertical-mode calculation, a second harmonic proportional to . These corrections are found by solving the noncritical boundary value problems, with homogeneous thermal data except for the imposed forcing.
At order , the method of multiple scales produces the slow derivative , the detuning term , and the two cross-advection terms involving first- and second-order fields. Project the component onto the adjoint eigenfunction using the vertical inner product. This is the solvability condition in the method of multiple scales: divide each resonant projection by . The detuning supplies with ; interactions of horizontal wavenumbers and permit with ; self-interaction through the slaved mean and second harmonic supplies . Other products have the wrong horizontal wavenumber. Reflection permits real coefficients with this cosine forcing. Thus the symmetry-allowed spatially forced convection amplitude equation isThere is a useful specialization that should not be silently missed. For the literal one-vertical-mode Stokes flow problem, the vanishing two-to-one forcing coefficient for Stokes convection makes at this order. To see this, write a positive second-harmonic forcing component as , incorporating the cosine's factor . Its coupling to the negative critical harmonic has projected integrand, apart from sign and its factor ,The integral vanishes because at both plates, even though is nonzero. This proves the cancellation without solving the forced profiles. The permitted coefficient is therefore zero times ; symmetry alone does not establish nonzero phase pinning for the equations actually supplied.
The same normalization makes the remaining coefficients explicit. Since , . The quadratic second harmonic cancels for , while the uniform correction is . Projecting gives . Thus for the literal model and this temperature normalization,A generic nonzero would require a nonvanishing projection in an amended physical model or a different forcing structure. It is still meaningful to classify the real-coefficient amplitude equation requested independently.
Write . Then and . These are a gradient flow for , so local minima give stable equilibrium points. At the origin the two eigenvalues are and . The origin has exponential asymptotic stability if , retains asymptotic stability with algebraic decay at , and is unstable if . At equality, obeys , since both linear coefficients are nonpositive. Integrating this inequality proves attraction even in the zero-eigenvalue direction.
For the stable nonzero equilibrium points are real; for they are imaginary:The real branch has Jacobian matrix eigenvalues ; the imaginary branch has . The oppositely aligned branch, when it exists, is a saddle equilibrium. No mixed real-imaginary nonzero equilibrium is possible when .
For , the origin is stable for , with algebraic decay at zero. If , the circle is radially attracting. Each point has Lyapunov stability but has a neutral phase direction, so it does not have individual asymptotic stability; the circle has orbital stability. This is the literal model's unpinned family. The general nonzero- branches instead exhibit phase locking to one of two phases separated by .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 337 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Assume . The symbol in this part is the convection roll amplitude, not the Rayleigh number of the previous part. Set for the algebra. The periodic boundary condition requires and modulation wavenumbers . The conserved-field equation preserves the imposed zero mean of , since the integral of an derivative over a period vanishes.
Equating the coefficients after linearization of the convection amplitude coupled to a conserved field givesThe conjugate sideband is needed because the variation of couples a perturbation to its complex conjugate. Put , . The linear operator on isIts characteristic polynomial, expressed conveniently without expanding every coefficient, isAt it has roots . The phase root is neutral; the uniform root is excluded by the prescribed zero-flux-perturbation mean. Nonzero arbitrarily long-wave modes remain allowed on a sufficiently large domain. For fixed , the two roots tending to zero have at simple limiting roots. Dividing the polynomial by yieldsRepeated limiting roots may require a further expansion, but do not affect the strict instability criterion. If , the constant term is negative and the two real roots have opposite signs. The positive root gives a growing long-wave sideband instability. Using givesThis is sufficient for instability when a sufficiently small nonzero allowed is available. It is not an unconditional instability theorem for every fixed finite period. For example , , , satisfy the inequality, but the nonzero allowed obey . Their roots are and , all negative. The prescribed zero mean removes the uniform flux root and the remaining uniform phase is merely neutral. The corrected conclusion is the long-wave instability with a conserved mean field, with domain size and mode availability stated.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 337 3 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For Darcy-Bénard convection, the dimensionless Darcy law is , with incompressibility and a heat equation about . Here is a Darcy thermal-time Rayleigh number, with permeability replacing the squared-depth dependence in the fluid-layer Rayleigh number. The stated stream function convention gives , so . The vertical-plane curl of Darcy law gives ; omitting the quadratic perturbation advection from the heat equation gives .
On the impermeable connected square boundary, zero normal velocity makes constant along the boundary; choose that constant as zero. The prescribed conductive boundary temperature fixes on all four sides. Thus the perfect-conductor wording is interpreted through the supplied homogeneous perturbation data: the side temperatures retain the background vertical profile, rather than imposing a different isothermal side state.
At marginal stability put and . The two coupled equations implyThe gauge transformation for conducting-square Darcy onset removes the first derivative:The square's Dirichlet Laplacian eigenfunctions are , with eigenvalues of equal to , . The first marginal value is thereforeIt is genuinely the first instability threshold, not just an isolated neutral value. Eliminating gives the temperature linear operator , where is the Dirichlet realization of an elliptic operator for the Laplacian. Integration by parts shows the second term is self-adjoint and nonnegative, since its quadratic form is . Thus the spectrum is real, starts negative at , and its leading eigenvalue cannot cross into growth without a zero eigenvalue. The smallest zero value is the one found above.
Let , and . Multiplying the lowest real by independent real and imaginary constants gives two real physical eigenfunctions:The subscripts indicate even and odd parity about . Because is even in , the first has even and odd , while the second reverses those parities. They are linearly independent and satisfy all four Dirichlet boundary conditions. The lowest complex eigenfunction is simple over the complex numbers, but its arbitrary complex multiplier supplies two independent real pairs; this explains the physical degeneracy.
Neutral and oscillatory modes in porous convection
. Details. Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 337 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For homogeneous corrections at the square boundary, integration by parts gives and . The first-derivative cross terms give and . Using and , these four contributions cancel in pairs. This proves exactly the supplied solvability condition, including the weight on its second row. Equivalently is the relevant adjoint eigenfunction for this coupled system.
At first order in the detuning, the inhomogeneous equations areInsert these right-hand sides into the verified solvability condition. One obtainsA further integration by parts, using the leading heat equation, givesHence the growth-rate solvability for conducting-square Darcy convection yieldsThe PDF prints the reciprocal of the required integral ratio. With its declared , the displayed reciprocal does not follow and is false for . Both integrals are positive for these nonzero modes. The square's Poincaré inequality gives their ratio at least , so it cannot equal its reciprocal. For , the two explicit parities give approximately for odd and for even ; the printed expression instead gives about and . These values provide direct mode-based counterexamples.
The corrected growth rate is positive for and negative for , as expected at a convection threshold. Because the critical eigenspace is two-dimensional, an arbitrary superposition generally splits into two different first-order growth rates. The specified parity modes remain independent under the detuning: the temperature linear operator preserves reflection parity, so the cross-parity projection vanishes. This justifies applying the scalar solvability condition to either listed eigenfunction; it should not be applied as a single common eigenvalue to an arbitrary mixture.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 335 2 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let be the measured wave scattering response> linear operator, with direct background propagation removed if present. Its time reversal operator is the positive operator . For a normalized emitted signal ,The maximizing signal is a right singular vector, equivalently an eigenvector of with its largest eigenvalue. This is a precise intensity statement independent of a scatterer model.
Under the Born approximation for scalar wave scattering, neglect interactions between point scatterers and writewhere is the receiver response to scatterer , is its illumination by the source array, and is its scattering wave amplitude. Well-resolved point scatterers have approximately orthogonal vectors and . In the ideal orthogonal limit,Thus the most reflective, geometrically weighted scatterer gives the largest eigenvalue, and its normalized steering vector gives the corresponding wave focusing signal. If illumination and reception factors are equal for all scatterers, this is precisely the scatterer with largest . Geometric size by itself is not the quantity being ranked.
Repeated adjoint time reversal acoustics is power iteration on . If its top eigenvalue is simple and the initial signal has a nonzero component along its eigenvector, thenA tied largest eigenvalue leaves a combination in the leading eigenspace, and an initial signal orthogonal to that eigenspace cannot excite it. This is the basis of the DORT method. Mere physical separation is insufficient if the array cannot resolve the scatterers; coherent steering-vector overlap or multiple scattering can mix the modes. Also, if includes unrestricted homogeneous transmission, its largest eigenvalue need not identify any individual scatterer. The correspondence concerns the resolved wave scattering response>. The ideal correspondence and selective wave focusing are analyzed by Prada and Fink.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 335 3 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Write and retain the Landweber relaxation parameter . The printed allows the fixed choice , since then . It does not justify a unit step: the scalar linear operator has norm below , but unit-step error is multiplied by and diverges. We use throughout.
From the recurrence and , induction yields the closed formFor the compact operator in part ii, take a singular system of a compact operator with , and . Thus are the eigenvalues of ; this fixes the notation implicit in the printed hint. In the singular component , the recurrence isSumming the geometric series gives the Landweber spectral filterThere is no contribution from data in or from in the reconstruction. Starting at zero is what selects the minimum-norm least-squares solution.
For fixed , , so the numerator tends to . The assumption is the Picard criterionwith an arbitrary additional component in . The squared reconstruction error isEach term tends to zero and is bounded by a summable term from the Picard criterion. The dominated convergence theorem therefore proves , where is the Moore–Penrose inverse of an operator.
For each finite , the regularization of an inverse problem is stable. Set . The geometric series and implyConsequently the Landweber noise amplification bound in this general step-size convention is . If additionally , the sharper numerator bound gives .
To see the regularization parameter directly, put . Modes with have numerator approximately , so their inverse coefficient is approximately rather than . Each fixed nonzero mode is eventually restored as . ThusThe finite iterates suppress unstable small singular values; infinitely many iterations remove this suppression. For noisy data , the noise-bias decomposition for linear regularization givesChoosing and proves noisy-data convergence. The reciprocal iteration index is a regularization parameter, and early stopping controls noise amplification.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 335 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
To first order in , replace by and use the known incident field in the outgoing integral. The Born approximation for scalar wave scattering givesBoth the contrast term and the internal-field correction are second order for fixed geometry in the perturbative regime established in part i.
Specify the data space before taking an adjoint operator. For example, let and , where is a bounded measurement surface separated from . Define the linear operatorFor bounded incident field this is a Hilbert-Schmidt operator, hence a compact operator. The equation is , with . Other sampling geometries give corresponding data spaces and weights; the paper does not specify one. Using the usual complex inner products, its adjoint operator isThe complex conjugations are required by the adjoint operator identity, not by wave reciprocity alone.
The Landweber iteration starts from and applies gradient descent to :Each step back-propagates the data residual. The Landweber relaxation parameter controls stability, and early stopping of Landweber iteration prevents small singular values from amplifying measurement errors. For an explicitly real-valued index contrast, use the real Hilbert space structure and replace by in this update. Additional sign or support constraints require corresponding projections; none are assumed here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 102 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A simple Lie algebra is a nonabelian Lie algebra whose only ideals of a Lie algebra are and the whole algebra.
Use the standard basis of the sl2 Lie algebra, withLet be an ideal and choose . Since is invariant under the Adjoint representation, it is invariant under the linear operator . The three basis vectors are eigenvectors of with distinct eigenvalues . Applying the corresponding polynomial spectral projections to shows that contains at least one nonzero multiple of , , or .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 326 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the singular system of a compact operator convention and . Starting from zero gives no component in . Write . The coefficient equations areSolving these scalar linear ordinary differential equations givesConsequently asymptotic regularization has the spectral regularization method representationThe component of orthogonal to the closure of the range of is annihilated by and contributes nothing. The scalar filter satisfies , so every fixed- reconstruction is a bounded linear operator. Its long-time limit is the Moore–Penrose inverse of an operator on admissible data.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 350 3 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The notation denotes generalized Gaussian white noise over , not a Gaussian measure supported on : the identity is not a trace-class operator there. For example, realize the observation on a suitable space of tempered distributions. Its Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian measure is . For deterministic , the stochastic pairing has normal distribution under and is the isonormal Gaussian process indexed by .
Interpret the stated maps between Sobolev spaces as bounded linear operators, as usual. In particular is bounded, so its adjoint operator is bounded on . Hence maps into , which is the property needed here. The stronger smoothing follows by Sobolev duality: boundedness of gives , and therefore . As , the shift belongs to the noise Cameron-Martin space of a Gaussian measure for -almost every .
The white-noise likelihood for a square-integrable shift, obtained from the Cameron-Martin theorem for a Gaussian measure in its white-noise form, isHere is the law of . In an orthonormal basis of , with white-noise coordinates , the pairing under isFor fixed this has mean-square convergence and converges almost surely, since . The stipulated joint measurability allows the likelihood to be used under . One must not replace this expression by a finite , because white noise is not -valued. On the unbounded domain , membership of white noise in a global unweighted negative Sobolev space must not be assumed either; the stochastic pairing avoids that issue.
Let be the actual joint law. The shift formula gives with Radon-Nikodym derivative . DefineFor each fixed admissible , the moment-generating function of a normal distribution givesBy Tonelli theorem, , so for -almost every . The likelihood is finite and strictly positive for -almost every ; Fubini's theorem then gives for -almost every . The marginal observation law is and is an equivalent probability measure to .
The Bayes formula for a dominated observation model therefore definesTo verify that it is the conditional distribution, for measurable sets of unknowns and of data,Thus the posterior distribution is well defined for almost every observation under the actual data law. This is the appropriate almost-everywhere assertion supplied by Bayes' theorem; the stated assumptions do not prescribe a canonical posterior at every exceptional generalized datum.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 3 21I a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
For a bounded linear operator , the spectrum iswhile the point spectrum is the set of eigenvalues, equivalently the for which is not injective.
A compact operator maps the unit ball to a relatively compact set. A self-adjoint operator satisfies , or for all . A finite-rank operator has finite-dimensional image.
