Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 105 2 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Choose continuous representatives using Morrey's inequality. On the closed unit ball they are uniformly bounded by and satisfyThe Arzela-Ascoli theorem therefore gives a uniformly convergent subsequence with a continuous limit. For , use the uniform Lipschitz estimate instead; this part remains valid at that endpoint.
For weak lower semicontinuity of the Hilbert norm, weak convergence gives , and henceTaking the lower limit proves .
For the nonlinear integral, use local Sobolev compactness gives lower semicontinuity of a nonnegative integral. Select a subsequence attaining the lower limit of the integrals. The Rellich-Kondrachov compactness theorem on successively larger balls gives a diagonal subsequence converging strongly in local L2 space to . After a further subsequence it converges almost everywhere. Since , the Fatou lemma givesEach integral is finite because . The argument uses local compactness rather than convexity: is not a convex function on the whole real line.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 105 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Work with real-valued functions. The screened sine-Gordon energy is well defined: , and is integrable by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. It is coercive, becauseA minimizing sequence is bounded in the Hilbert space . Weak sequential compactness of bounded sequences in a reflexive Banach space supplies a weakly convergent subsequence. The squared H1 space norm is weakly lower semicontinuous, the source pairing is weakly continuous, and the nonlinear term is covered by local Sobolev compactness gives lower semicontinuity of a nonnegative integral. The direct method in the calculus of variations therefore gives a minimizer .
Taking its first variation in any givesThus the Euler-Lagrange equation isas a weak solution, equivalently in distributions when tested against smooth compactly supported functions. The derivative of the nonlinear term is justified by and the second-order remainder bound .
Now , so the supplied elliptic regularity estimate puts in . Applying the Sobolev inequality to and each first weak derivative gives . Morrey's inequality and uniformly continuous integrable functions vanish at infinity prove that its continuous representative tends to zero.
The final printed supremum estimate is false in general. The maximum bound for a monotone reaction term involves , which is odd and strictly increasing: , and its zeros are isolated. If , a positive maximum of satisfies ; apply the same argument to . The valid general estimate isThe bound by is valid if , but can be smaller than for larger positive .
For an explicit failure of the source-size bound for the screened sine-Gordon equation, take , , and . These are smooth functions in the required spaces. With ,Hence . Moreover has , so the energy is convex and this critical point is a minimizer. The example therefore satisfies even the minimizing and hypotheses of the printed claim.
Screened sine-Gordon energy 2026-10-06
For real , this energy functional on is coercive and attains its minimum by the direct method in the calculus of variations. The nonnegative potential term is weakly lower semicontinuous by local Sobolev compactness gives lower semicontinuity of a nonnegative integral. Its Euler-Lagrange equation is in the weak solution sense. The extra linear restoring term screens the Sine-Gordon equation nonlinearity. The scalar potential is convex because ; hence any weak critical point is a minimizer. The elliptic regularity estimate for , together with , gives . The Sobolev inequality then puts in , so Morrey's inequality and uniformly continuous integrable functions vanish at infinity give a continuous representative tending to zero.