Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / Paper 1 / 13 / d / Solution

For real solutions with $x>0$, the square root requires $y\ge 0$. First retain the solution $y\equiv 0$, which would be lost by dividing by a square root of $y$.

For $y>0$, use the homogeneous first-order differential equation substitution $v=\sqrt{y/x}>0$, so $y=x{v}^2$, $\sqrt{xy}=xv$ and $y^{\prime }=v^2+2xv{v}^{\prime }$. The equation becomesThis is now a separable differential equation. Integration gives $-2/v+2\ln v=-\ln x+C$. Since $x{v}^2=y$, the positive solutions satisfyThe implicit family is sufficient here because only parts (a) and (b) request an explicit expression. It also shows why the nonnegative choice of $v$ matters: $\sqrt{xy}$ denotes the positive square root.