Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 323 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Choose Kraus representationsThe composite quantum channel has Kraus operators . Each has matrix rank at most , because it factors through the -dimensional space , andThe operation fidelity uses the unsquared quantum fidelity on a purification of a density operator, so its square is entanglement fidelity. The Kraus formula for entanglement fidelity givesIndeed each overlap equals .
For any one of these Kraus operators , let be the orthogonal projection onto its image, of matrix rank . Since , the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for the Hilbert-Schmidt inner product gives the rank bound for a weighted operator trace:The last step uses part (i) at , followed by nonnegativity of the eigenvalues of the density operator . Summing over the Kraus operators and using their completeness relation proves the finite-dimensional quantum compression converse:No invertibility of , or restriction to an isometric decoder, was used.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 323 3 iii b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
A density operator is a pure state exactly when its matrix rank is one. Within the admissible interval from part (a), one of and must vanish. Therefore the pure-state parameters and vectors arewhere the Bell states are . Equivalently, the purity of a density operator is , reaching one exactly at these two endpoints.
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 ia Paper 3 4B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-05
The quotient theorem for Cartesian tensors here says: if contracting with every vector gives the components of a vector in every right-handed orthonormal basis, then obeys the second-order tensor transformation law. Conversely that transformation law guarantees the contraction is a vector. One may equivalently test that is a scalar for every pair of vectors .
By part (a), and . The contraction property in the new basis saysSince this holds for every test vector, . Using givesFor the converse, , exactly the vector law. For the equivalent scalar formulation, invariance of for every gives , forcing the same matrix identity.
The quantifier “every” matters: an arbitrary nonzero matrix can annihilate one fixed vector, so a single successful contraction cannot establish tensoriality. The stated bases test proper rotations; transformation under orthogonal reflections would require an additional hypothesis if that were wanted. “Second-order” counts tensor indices, rather than the matrix rank of a particular component matrix.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 129 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Work in positive dimension . A cap set has no distinct zero-sum triple. Over the finite field , if two elements of a zero-sum triple agree then all three agree, since . Thus a zero-sum triple in a cap set must be diagonal. We prove the Ellenberg–Gijswijt cap-set bound by the polynomial method in combinatorics, keeping the exponential constant explicit and removing the fixed prefactor.
First prove the needed slice rank of a diagonal tensor over any field. The slice rank of a three-variable tensor is the least number of terms in a decomposition of the forms , , and . A diagonal tensor on a set of cardinality , with every diagonal entry nonzero, has slice rank at most by one slice for each entry. For the reverse inequality, suppose a decomposition has slices in the direction, in the direction, and in the direction, with . LetThe rank-nullity theorem gives . The maximum-support vector in a finite-dimensional subspace lemma supplies with at least nonzero coordinates: choose of maximum support of a vector; restriction must be injective, or adding a nonzero kernel of a linear map element would strictly enlarge that support of a vector. This argument is valid over finite fields, without any assumption that a generic vector avoids all coordinate hyperplanes.
Contract the proposed tensor decomposition in against . The diagonal tensor becomes a diagonal matrix of matrix rank at least . All slices vanish. Each remaining or slice becomes a matrix of matrix rank at most one, so subadditivity of matrix rank gives matrix rank at most , a contradiction. Therefore the slice rank of a diagonal tensor is exactly .
Now, for a cap set , consider the polynomialEach factor is one when its argument is zero and zero otherwise, because the two nonzero elements of have square one. Thus is the indicator function of . Restricted to , it is a diagonal tensor with every diagonal entry one, and its slice rank is .
Every monomial in the expansion has individual exponents at most two and total polynomial degree at most . Consequently at least one of its , , or blocks has polynomial degree at most . Assign each monomial to one such block, breaking ties in a fixed way, and collect assigned terms by the monomial in that block. Each collection is a slice. Ifthere are at most slices in each direction. Thus .
The low-degree monomial count for the cap-set bound follows directly from a weighted sum. Each exponent vector counted by satisfies , soThis supplies its own elementary exponential estimate; no unstated probabilistic estimate is required. Since , we have , but alone would leave a fixed prefactor.
Use Cartesian powers of cap sets to remove that prefactor. The -fold Cartesian product is still a cap set: in each block, a zero-sum triple of its elements must have all three entries equal. Hence . Taking th roots and letting tend to infinity proves the removal of an exponential prefactor by Cartesian powers:The strict middle inequality follows by cubing: . We can therefore takeFor every , a set with cannot be a cap set, and hence contains the required distinct triple. If zero dimension were included, the singleton would be another small-case exception; positive dimension is the convention used here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 3 c ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For on the unit circle, use the conjugated monomial vectorThen the prescribed diagonal sums givePositive semidefiniteness provesThis is the Gram matrix representation of a trigonometric polynomial. The Hermitian condition also implies , so its values on the unit circle are real. The conjugated monomial vector is required by the source's convention; the unconjugated vector would represent instead.
In particular . If this matrix trace is zero, all nonnegative eigenvalues vanish and , so . A general feasible Gram matrix need not have matrix rank one; the Fejér–Riesz theorem ensures a rank-one representative exists whenever the nonnegative trigonometric polynomial is nonzero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 3 c i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Collect the factor's coefficients in the column vector and setThis is a Hermitian matrix and a positive semidefinite matrix, because for every complex vector ,On the unit circle, expanding the modulus square givesUniqueness of the finite Laurent polynomial coefficients, proved as in part (b)(i), therefore givesThis is the rank-one spectral-factor Gram matrix. The matrix has matrix rank one when and zero when . The orientation is the PDF's convention: using instead would generally interchange and .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ib Paper 2 10E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
View as the matrix of a linear map of matrix rank . Choose vectors whose images form a basis of , extend them by a basis of to a basis of , and extend to a basis of . In these two bases the matrix of is the rank normal formThe two changes of basis give invertible with the displayed matrix equal to .
For the block upper triangular matrix , every nonzero term in the Leibniz formula for determinants sends the rows belonging to into the columns belonging to ; bijectivity then sends the remaining rows into the columns. The permutation sum consequently factors into the determinant sums for and , proving
Finally suppose , so : the map is an intertwining operator. If lies in the generalized eigenspace of for , then for some ,Because and have no common eigenvalue, is invertible, hence . The generalized eigenspaces of span , so . Thus the Sylvester equation operator is injective.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2022 iii Paper 115 1 a Solution 2026-09-28
An by matrix has matrix rank exactly when at least one of its by minors has nonzero determinant. For each multi-index , the setis open in the vector space of all real by matrices, because the determinant is continuous. Their union is , so is itself open in . It therefore inherits the standard smooth manifold structure and has dimension . This is the full-row-rank matrix manifold.
Quadratic regression 2026-10-07
A polynomial regression of degree two is linear in its unknown regression coefficients despite being curved in the predictor. Its design matrix has columns ; three distinct predictor values give full column matrix rank.
Rank bound for a weighted operator trace 2026-10-06
If is a density operator with decreasing eigenvalues and has matrix rank at most , let project onto the image of . The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for the Hilbert-Schmidt inner product givesThe Hermitian effect variational principle bounds by , proving the claimed estimate without assuming is invertible.
Rank-one spectral-factor Gram matrix 2026-10-06
For coefficient column , is a Hermitian matrix and a positive semidefinite matrix because . Expanding on the unit circle gives coefficient . Thus has matrix rank one when and zero otherwise. General feasible Gram matrices need not have matrix rank one.
Subadditivity of matrix rank Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-06
The image of the linear map is contained in the sum of the images of and . Since the dimension of a vector space of this sum is at most the sum of their dimensions, matrix rank is subadditive. Iteration shows that a sum of matrices of matrix rank at most one has matrix rank at most , over any field.