Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / Paper 1 / 3 / b / i

Use the zero initial displacement and velocity given in the PDF. The characteristic roots of the homogeneous equation are $-1\pm i\mu$. Its causal Green function of a damped oscillator iswhere $H$ is the Heaviside step function. The positive-time kernel has $G(0+)=0$ and $G^{\prime }(0+)=1$, so its derivative jump generates a unit impulse. The zero-data forced solution is consequently the causal convolutionDifferentiating once gives $x^{\prime }(0)=0$; differentiating twice supplies the endpoint term $g(t)$ and verifies the differential equation. No homogeneous transient is required with these initial data.