Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 1 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2020 / Paper 1 / 14 / b

The Hessian matrix has entriesAt each stationary point the mixed entry vanishes, so the signs of the diagonal entries directly classify the local quadratic change:In particular the two local minima are also global minima: the squared term is nonnegative and $\ln (3+y^2)\ge \ln 3$, with equality in both bounds exactly at $(\pm 1,0)$. The local maximum at the origin is not a global maximum, since $f$ grows without bound as $x^2+y^2\to \infty$. The opposite diagonal signs at the other two points establish their saddle point character.