Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / iii / Paper 63 / 4 / a / i / Solution

Use the Fourier transform convention $\hat{w}(E)={\int }_{\mathbb{R}}w(t)e^{itE}dt$. Since $w\ge 0$, it is real, so $\hat{w}(-E)=\hat{w}(E{)}^{\ast }$. The positive-frequency cutoff therefore also eliminates frequencies at or below $-\Delta$. Normalization gives $\int w=\hat{w}(0)=1$.

For spectral filtering of Hamiltonian terms, chooseIn an energy eigenbasis, its matrix elements areAt $i=j=0$ the frequency is zero, so the normalization preserves the ground-state expectation:The spectral filter is a positive weighted average of unitary conjugations; in particular the integral is bounded in operator norm by $\Vert h_Z\Vert$. We can choose it even without an extra assumed tail bound: the evenization of a nonnegative bandlimited filter proved in part (e) produces another admissible spectral filter with the same type of positive-time decay. Make that choice consistently in all the filtered terms and shell definitions below.