Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 64 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Positivity means almost everywhere, since the real logarithm must belong to . A positivity-preserving operator gives . For fixed , the scalar shifted Poisson data fidelity is , withComposition with the linear operator proves convexity in , and strict convexity holds along pairs whose forward images differ on a set of positive measure. The admissible class itself is convex: the concavity of the logarithm gives , controlling its negative part, while controls its positive part.
Because and , the Jensen inequality gives the requested bound:The final equality uses nonnegativity and the unit area. Since , this controls the forward-image norm on energy sublevels.
The printed strictly positive problem has no minimizer. This is nonattainment under strict positivity for shifted Poisson fidelity, rather than a failure of the coercivity calculation. Indeed, with and , implies . Also cannot vanish identically for a strictly positive . To see this, let . If , positivity and give . But in and continuity of would imply , contradicting the hypothesis. Thus every admissible has positive fidelity and hence positive total energy.
Conversely, the constants are admissible, have zero total variation, and satisfyTheir logarithms are integrable for each , but the limit is excluded. ThereforeA bounded minimizing sequence and bounded-variation compactness do not repair a nonclosed positivity/logarithm constraint. In particular, a literal existence or uniqueness proof for that domain is impossible.
The natural correction is to minimize over with , omitting the unnecessary condition: the fidelity only contains , which is already integrable. Here is the full existence for nonnegative shifted Poisson regularization argument, also valid for any bounded nonnegative data . Let , , and take a minimizing sequence of energy at most . The displayed bound gives and . Write . The Poincaré inequality for total variation and mean control for positive imaging operators yieldThe denominator is nonzero, so the full norm is bounded. Bounded-variation compactness gives in along a subsequence, with . Continuity gives in . On , , so the fidelity converges in the integral; lower semicontinuity of variation completes the direct method in the calculus of variations.
For the actual printed data , the corrected problem has the unique minimizer , even if is not injective. Zero attains energy zero. Any other zero-energy candidate would have both and ; on the connected square, zero variation makes a nonnegative constant, and forces that constant to vanish. For general positive bounded data, an injective is a sufficient uniqueness condition, because its fidelity is strictly convex; injectivity is not a necessary condition in every instance.
In the finite-dimensional interpretation, let . Independent Poisson observations with these intensities have negative log-likelihood . Removing the constant gives precisely the stated fidelity. Thus the model is Poisson counting noise with a unit background intensity, or an approximate version of it for rescaled/continuous grey values. Literal Poisson counts are integers; the constraint is a grey-value normalization, not a literal unscaled count sample.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ia Paper 1 3F b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
For sufficiently close to zero, . Apply the mean value theorem to the logarithm between and : there is a point between these endpoints withAs from either side, , so this quotient tends to . The exponential function is continuous, and thereforeThe hypotheses of the mean value theorem hold because is continuous and differentiable for , with derivative .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 13 3 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
We need independent sets in every sufficiently large remaining induced subgraph, rather than just one in the initial random graph. The useful concentration variable is the maximum edge-disjoint clique packing in the complement graph; changing one edge changes that variable by at most one. This avoids the much larger sensitivity of the ordinary clique count in a binomial random graph.
First work in a binomial random graph , take , and let count its -cliques. Put and let be its maximum edge-disjoint clique packing size. Form the clique conflict graph whose vertices are these cliques, adjacent when they share an edge. If counts unordered conflicting pairs, the Caro-Wei bound gives, for each realization,To verify the bound, randomly order the vertices of a finite graph and retain each vertex preceding all its graph neighbours. These retained vertices are an independent set, with expected size by the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Interpret the ratio as zero when . A second application of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, now to expectations, givesCounting ordered pairs of -sets with common vertices, including identical sets when , yieldsThe shared edges account for the factor . We claimHere are the estimates, including the large overlaps. For , the probability that a random -set contains any specified elements is at most . Summing over their choices inside the first -set givesThe logarithm of is a convex function, a quadratic in , so the maximum on this interval is at an endpoint. We have . As , the other endpoint satisfiesand is smaller than for sufficiently large . Summing at most terms gives .
For the other half of the overlaps, write , where . The exact identity and an upper bound areThe quantity in parentheses is , which tends to zero. The geometric series is thus at most for sufficiently large . This proves the claim. In fact and , so eventuallyNow expose the independent edge indicators one at a time. The edge-exposure martingale starts at and ends at . Deleting one edge destroys at most one member of any edge-disjoint clique packing. Hence changing one indicator changes by at most one; coupling the remaining indicators shows .
Precisely, the Azuma-Hoeffding inequality says that if is a martingale and almost surely for deterministic , then, for ,If all , the martingale is constant. Applying the lower-tail inequality with and givesfor sufficiently large . This is the only martingale concentration inequality needed.
Return to the original binomial random graph and set . For each fixed -element vertex set , the complement graph of has distribution . The union bound therefore givessince . Thus with high probability every vertex set of size at least contains an independent set of sizeApply greedy colouring by removing independent sets: remove such an independent set, give it a fresh colour, and repeat while at least vertices remain. Give each of the fewer than final vertices its own colour. This uses at mostcolours, since . Together with the lower bound, this gives the chromatic number of the half-density binomial random graph:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 27 3 b Solution 2026-10-06
Write , where is the prime omega function. If , its contribution to the Dirichlet convolution isSince , summing over the prime factors proves the log-weighted convolution bound for three to the prime omega, . On , , henceThis is the required inequality. The standard Chebyshev estimate bounds its right side by . To bound the latter sum, use multiplicativity and extend to all numbers with prime factors at most :The Mertens second theorem states . Taking logarithms of the product, with a summable remainder, gives . Therefore the product is , proving the summatory bound for three to the prime omega in the required range:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 27 5 b Solution 2026-10-06
Finite rearrangement and the Von Mangoldt divisor identity giveFor , integral comparison of the increasing logarithm gives . Moving to real changes the main term by . Thus the integrated Chebyshev sum hasFor , chooseThese are logarithmic Möbius function weights; they need not be upper-bound sieve weights. For , the Möbius inversion identities and giveHence the expression suggested in the question isWe will use the elementary Möbius harmonic logarithmic moments, , for whichHere is a proof of the needed estimates. From , replacing floors by gives . Also , because . Substituting the permitted harmonic number estimate gives , so .
For , the weighted Dirichlet hyperbola method gives the harmonic divisor sum expansionExplicitly, for , . Substitute the harmonic estimate and , obtained by unit-interval integral comparison. This proves the expansion without a prime-distribution theorem. Since , we have , and thereforeThe summed error is bounded by , by integral comparison. Thus .
Finally substitute the asymptotic for into . The main term isThe error sum is : partition the integers into ; each interval contributes , and the resulting series converges. Using the moment estimates proves the Selberg symmetry formula:In particular, the factor two comes from the quadratic logarithmic moment, rather than from an assumption of the Prime number theorem.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 36 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Put and . Using natural logarithms, the Kullback-Leibler divergence isThe integrand is zero where , including where both densities vanish, and is where . Equivalently, when is absolutely continuous with respect to , and it is otherwise. This is a well-defined extended integral: on , writing gives , so its negative part is integrable.
For Pinsker's inequality, an infinite Kullback-Leibler divergence makes the conclusion immediate. Assume it is finite. SetSince , the positive and negative parts of have equal integrals. ThusThis is the total variation distance with the convention .
We first prove the binary partition bound for relative entropy. For any measurable with , apply Jensen inequality to the convex function under the conditional probability measure . Absolute continuity of measures givesIf , both sides are zero; if , finiteness forces as well. Apply this bound to and its complement to obtainFor , regarding as a function of givesConsequently is a convex function and has its minimum zero at . By continuity this also holds at . For , the finite case has and the remaining cases have infinite divergence. This proves the Bernoulli relative entropy lower bound in every case. Combining the bounds yields
For the Hellinger distance, retain the unnormalized convention in whichThe integral is the Hellinger affinity. In the finite-divergence case, for -almost every point. Apply with to getThe affinity is finite by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Mass of on creates no difficulty, since the affinity vanishes there and both probability measures have mass one. The infinite-divergence case is again immediate. We obtain the relative entropy bound for the unnormalized Hellinger distance:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 39 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A feasible per-flow allocation satisfies for each active route and . It has proportional fairness if every feasible competitor obeysBy the first-order inequality for the strictly concave logarithm, this is equivalent to maximizing weighted logarithmic utility over the feasible allocations. Inactive-route rates are immaterial; set them to zero as a convention.
Write , , , and . The capacity constraints are and . For , put . Each active local route uses its remaining capacity . Omitting constants, the utility isIts maximum has ; when , the maximum is the endpoint . Hence for active routesThese formulas also give and when . When there is no allocated service. Equivalently, the aggregate route rates for areThis is the proportionally fair allocation on a two-resource linear network for a two-resource linear flow network.
For independent Poisson processes of documents and independent document sizes with exponential distribution of rate , the memorylessness of the exponential distribution makes the population a continuous-time Markov chain. Its transition intensities areThe departure intensity sums the independent completion hazards . There is no departure on an inactive route. Set , with .
To prove the proposed stationary distribution, define the balance function of a flow-level networkFor an active local route, , while for the through route this ratio is . Thus . The weightssatisfy detailed balance on every arrival-departure pair:Each total jump rate is bounded by , so the chain is a nonexplosive Markov chain; normalized detailed-balance weights therefore give its stationary distribution, the stationary law of a two-resource linear flow network.
Use the negative binomial series to sum first over :The remaining two geometric series giveAll summands are nonnegative. Consequently the sum is finite exactly under the stability conditions for a two-resource linear flow networkThese say that the offered load on each unit-capacity resource is strictly below one. Equality is insufficient: at least one geometric series then diverges. If all arrival rates are positive, the chain is irreducible and the normalizable law is its unique equilibrium law.
Finally put , . Summing over yieldsThus the two local-route counts are independent, each with geometric distribution on the nonnegative integers. The conditional through-route count has negative binomial distributionFor positive traffic rates this depends on the local counts, so all three route counts are not independent. More quantitatively, , and likewise for . If zero arrival rates are allowed, the exceptional independent cases are , or , when the relevant counts are deterministic zero. This distinction is local-count independence with through-flow dependence.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 112 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let count the copies of the complete graph in the binomial random graph . By linearity of the expected value and independence of distinct edges,Throughout, is sufficiently large that . We have , and .
For the existence of a -clique, put and . Since ,This alone is insufficient: we must control the variance via the overlap formula for the variance of a clique count. Let indicate that a given -set spans a clique. If , the two copies share edges, soFor their edge sets are disjoint and the covariance vanishes, even when they share one vertex. Counting ordered pairs of -sets gives the exact formulaThis includes the diagonal case .
To bound the overlap factor, regard it as the probability that a uniformly chosen -set intersects a fixed in exactly vertices. A union bound over the possible specified -subsets of yieldsHere is a falling factorial, and the last bound holds for . ThereforeFor , the concave quadratic is minimized at an endpoint. Its endpoint values are and , both at least . Thus every power of in the last sum is at most , andbecause the logarithm of its numerator is . The second moment method, or Chebyshev's inequality directly, gives . Finally, every larger clique contains a -clique, so the absence of excludes all larger sizes. The clique number is exactly with high probability:
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 213 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Only routes with contribute to proportional fairness or to the weighted logarithmic utility; omit inactive routes from expressions with a rate in the denominator. Active routes have positive rates whenever a positive feasible allocation exists. For a feasible competitor , the elementary logarithm inequality givesA zero competitor rate on an active route has utility and also cannot improve the objective. Therefore a proportionally fair allocation maximizes the logarithmic objective. Conversely, the feasible set is a convex set, and differentiating the objective along at shows that an optimizer satisfies the proportional fairness inequality. Strict concavity gives uniqueness on active coordinates; rates assigned to nonexistent flows are immaterial.
In the linear flow network, put and for active routes. A local route uses only resource . If and , increasing increases the objective without violating any other constraint. Thus each active local route saturates its resource:Write and . For and , substitute into the objective. Apart from constants its dependence on isIts derivative vanishes when , and its second derivative is negative. Hence the per-flow through-route rate isIf , the optimal through-route aggregate rate is one, so still holds. If , each active local route has , also given by the displayed local formula. When there are no flows and no departures. Inactive coordinates need not be assigned these undefined per-flow formulas.
Independent arrivals and exponential document sizes make this a flow-level network model. A document of type has residual-size hazard per unit of data transmitted; when its transmission speed is , its completion hazard per unit time is . Thus the continuous-time Markov chain of flow counts has transition intensitiesFor these departure intensities are for the through route and for an active local route. Total arrival intensity is constant and total departure intensity is bounded by , ensuring a nonexplosive Markov chain.
Set , the offered traffic, and define the balance function of a flow-level networkThe binomial coefficients satisfyThese identities also cover states with only one kind of active route. They show that the weight satisfiesThus detailed balance for a continuous-time Markov chain proves that this is a reversible Markov chain and reduces the stationary distribution calculation to normalization.
Sum over first. The negative binomial series gives, for fixed local counts and ,All summands are nonnegative, so the Tonelli theorem permits exchanging the sums. The partition sum is thereforeIt is finite exactly when for every , for . These are the resource-load conditions: resource receives the through-route offered traffic plus its local offered traffic. The normalized stationary distribution isWith positive arrival rates this is the unique stationary distribution of the irreducible feasible flow-count chain. Zero arrival rates restrict its closed class to the corresponding zero coordinates.
Summing out also shows that the local counts are independent, with geometric distributions on :Hence their mean flow counts areThe binomial balance factor is essential: independent geometric counts for all routes would not give these departure rates or the correct resource-load normalization.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 130 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the cyclic logarithmic coloringHere the floor function places in the unique half-open real interval . If , thenbecause . For any real and , is either or . Applying this to the logarithms of and shows that their bin indices differ by or , and hence have different residues in modular arithmetic modulo . This proves the required separation, including both endpoints of the prescribed ratio interval. The half-open bins remove any ambiguity at their boundaries.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 130 1 iv Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let be the cyclic logarithmic coloring from part (iii). Define a finite coloring of the positive integers byThe inner logarithm is at least whenever , so this is defined everywhere. Suppose an increasing infinite sequence made every product with distinct indices monochromatic. Fix an index with and write . The sequence is unbounded, so choose with . Both ordered products are among the supposedly monochromatic values, but their logarithms satisfyIndeed, the first inequality is equivalent to , and the second uses . Part (iii) therefore gives , a contradiction. Thus the assertion with all distinct ordered indices is false. The obstruction needs an infinite unbounded sequence; it does not assert that every pair of different positive integers gives different colors.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 202 5 e Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For , use the power transformation on the positive stochastic interval. The Itô formula, with , givesThus simultaneously for . The right side reaches zero almost surely by recurrence of one-dimensional Brownian motion, and the same positive-path contradiction proves cannot exceed that Brownian first-passage time. This establishes the finite lifetime threshold for a power diffusion throughout .
At , the solution is the geometric Brownian motionIt is finite and positive at every finite time. On every compact time interval it has a positive minimum, so the hitting times of tend to infinity. Although the strong law for Brownian motion implies as , this is not a finite lifetime. ThereforeThe power transformation is a rescaled Lamperti transform; at the corresponding transformation is the logarithm. No claim about pathwise uniqueness after adjoining the boundary zero is needed: the coefficients are locally Lipschitz continuous inside the positive domain, which is the domain of the given maximal local solution of a stochastic differential equation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 216 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Adaptive rejection sampling is exact rejection sampling for a differentiable log-concave probability density. Given interior evaluation points , construct the upper envelopewhere is the unnormalized target probability density function. The concave function lies below all its tangent lines, so . Interpolation between adjacent evaluation points gives a lower envelope there, allowing a squeeze test. The normalized upper envelope is a piecewise exponential proposal distribution.
Draw and an independent from the uniform distribution, and accept when . A squeeze test can establish acceptance without evaluating . Otherwise evaluate and, whenever it is evaluated, add to the envelope's points. Repeat until acceptance. On each linear piece , its integral is on , with value when . These integrals select a piece; inverse transform sampling samples within it.
Here, with and , the log-posterior on hasChoose evaluation points strictly inside , avoiding any endpoint singularities of the logarithm. Every finite set of tangent lines gives a finite upper-envelope integral on this bounded interval; slope conditions needed for unbounded supports are unnecessary. When the posterior distribution is simply the uniform distribution and may be sampled directly.
For any fixed envelope, proposal times acceptance is proportional to . Conditional on all past evaluations and rejections, the next accepted value therefore has the same normalized posterior density. To see that adaptation does not spoil this, at every attempted draw its accepted mass is a scalar times that fixed posterior density; summing over possible rejection histories preserves it. The acceptance probability stays bounded below by its positive initial-envelope value because insertion only lowers the upper envelope. Thus acceptance occurs almost surely. With fresh independent randomness, successive accepted values are exact independent samples from the posterior distribution, even when the envelope is retained and improved between them.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 315 1 a i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Take , real , and the real branch , with physical temperature . In hydrostatic equilibrium the pressure decreases with height :Thus an atmospheric thermal inversion means , equivalently . For , the logarithm of the given relation yieldsThe sign restriction must be retained after squaring. In particular, the inverted branch has , whereas the non-inverted branch has . By differentiation, on the interior of either branch,Consequently,At , the inverse temperature gradient vanishes at the branch endpoint, rather than producing a finite isothermal interval. If , the relation becomes independently of ; it is not a nontrivial vertical atmospheric pressure-temperature profile under hydrostatic equilibrium. These distinctions prevent the two sides of the squared parabola from being interpreted as one permissible atmosphere.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 315 1 a iv Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The functional form is not specific to exoplanets. With positive pressure normalization and physical temperature, a square-root exponential atmospheric profile can approximate a monotone interval of the terrestrial atmosphere. An outward-cooling interval, such as part of the troposphere or mesosphere, requires . An upward-warming interval, such as part of the stratosphere heated by ultraviolet absorption or the thermosphere heated by high-energy radiation, requires .
The local atmospheric lapse rate follows from the ideal gas relation and hydrostatic equilibrium:For dry terrestrial air, approximately and give the dry-adiabatic lapse rate . The familiar mean tropospheric value near is less steep; a local fit must satisfy to be dry-convectively stable. Moist convection needs the moist parcel thermodynamics instead, and the terrestrial atmosphere is not uniformly dry or chemically homogeneous at all heights.
The squared-logarithm shape cannot reproduce an exactly constant nonzero lapse rate over an arbitrary thick region, all the alternating atmospheric layers, or a finite exactly isothermal region. It is a local parametrization with a fixed sign of the temperature gradient; it has no terrestrial universality.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 336 2 a iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For fixed , the linear term vanishes at . Put and resolve its neighborhood using . The integral is dominated by the resulting narrow peak:The local Taylor expansion of the logarithm changes it by a vanishing relative amount on this width, while both endpoints are many peak widths away for fixed .
There is no additional breakdown when : the peak approaches , but its distance from that endpoint is , whereas its width is . Thus . The relative logarithm variation over a width is , also improving as grows. For with fixed these separation conditions hold uniformly, including arbitrarily large . In particularThe only endpoint transition requiring a new distinguished limit is the earlier one near , where the peak approaches . Moving toward an endpoint is not by itself a reason for nonuniformity; the peak width must be compared with its endpoint distance.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 336 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The three distinguished limits are the outer expansion at , an intermediate asymptotic region at , and an inner expansion at . The middle scale resolves the coefficient change from to ; the narrower scale resolves the unmet left boundary condition. The original equation is understood on with a continuous extension to the boundary. As explained below, imposing a classical second derivative at would be too strong for this degenerate ordinary differential equation.
In the outer expansion, set . The leading equation is . Enforcing the right boundary condition gives . Because , the next equation is particularly simple:An integrating factor, or the substitution , gives . ThusThe error statement is for bounded away from zero. The left limiting form is through the terms needed for matching. A logarithm in the correction makes a pure integer-power inner ansatz inadequate.
For the intermediate asymptotic region, put and . The transformed equation isThe leading is a constant fixed to by matching. There is no order- forcing, so that homogeneous constant is zero after matching. At order , , giving . Matching for with the outer expansion fixes . HenceThe switchback term is larger than an ordinary constant correction and must be retained. The highest derivative term first changes this middle solution at order , so it does not alter the displayed result.
To locate the inner expansion, compare the derivative terms for . Their ratio at a layer width is , so the square-root-degenerate endpoint layer has . Put and . After dividing by the common leading factor, the equation through order isBoth orders therefore have the same homogeneous operator . Its derivative mode is proportional to . Using and the supplied elementary integral, defineThe intermediate asymptotic region gives the overlap value as . ThereforeIt satisfies the left boundary condition exactly to the retained orders, and its large- limit matches the middle result in . The outer and middle limits match with . These three formulae include all terms through , including the logarithmic switchback; the omitted terms in the middle and inner regions need not be .
For a check on that last point, continue the middle equation by one order. Its term obeysThe integration constant is selected by the outer limit. Its value at is , so the inner matching amplitude has a next correction . This independently explains why an remainder is appropriate.
If a single additive composite expansion is useful, combine the three formulae and subtract their two common overlaps. Writing and interpreting at zero givesIt is zero at , gives at , and reproduces all three retained expansions. It does not assert an error uniformly through the nested regions.
Finally, near zero . Thus the solution has a finite nonzero first derivative but generally a second derivative diverging like . This is compatible with the equation for : the vanishing coefficient of multiplies that singular derivative to give a finite limit. If one instead required and the differential equation pointwise at , the left condition would force . The normalized equation's other coefficients have only integrable singularities, so uniqueness for the initial value problem with would give the zero solution, contradicting the right condition. Explicitly, write the normalized equation as a first-order system for with an integrable coefficient matrix; its integral equation and the Gronwall inequality force a solution with zero initial vector to vanish. The continuous-endpoint interpretation is therefore essential.