Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2013 / Paper 1 / 10 / iv / Solution

The Rayleigh-Ritz variational principle bounds the lowest eigenvalue by the Rayleigh quotient of any nonzero admissible trial function. For $f=1-(r/a{)}^p$, take $p>0$, which ensures boundedness, the outer Dirichlet boundary condition, and finite radial Dirichlet energy. Direct integration givesThereforeThe derivative is $1-2/p^2$, so the unique minimizing positive exponent is $p=\sqrt{2}$. This yields the power-law variational bound for a circular membraneThe optimizing function has zero derivative at the origin and is admissible for the energy principle despite its unbounded second derivative there. For comparison, the exact radial fundamental has $\sqrt{{\lambda }_1}a\simeq 2.404826$, giving ${\nu }_1\simeq 0.382740c/a$. The bound is about $0.39\%$ above this value.