Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / Paper 2 / 6

In orthonormal Cartesian coordinates, a rank-$n$ tensor has components transforming under a change of axes $R$ asRepeated indices are summed. This is the tensor component transformation law; for rank one it is precisely the transformation law of a vector.

Use the vector triple product to write the double cross product asBoth dot products are invariant under an orthogonal change of axes, while $u^{\prime }=Ru$ and ${\Omega }^{\prime }=R\Omega$. ThereforeHence $W$ is a vector. This argument also avoids the sign issue for an individual cross product under an orientation-reversing orthogonal transformation: the double product has two such factors, whose signs cancel.

Take the centre of the ball as the origin. An orthogonal change of variables leaves both this domain and its volume measure invariant. Consequently its Cartesian moment integrals are isotropic tensors. Equivalently, inversion $x\mapsto -x$ immediately makes every odd moment zero.

There is no nonzero invariant rank-one vector, soAn isotropic tensor of rank two is a scalar multiple of the Kronecker delta, giving ${\int }_V{x}_i{x}_{j}dV=\alpha {\delta }_{ij}$. Contract the indices and use spherical coordinates:Thus the Cartesian moments of a three-dimensional ball giveFor the last identity, one may also use the general rotation-invariant rank-three tensor $c{ϵ}_{ijk}$: the moment is fully symmetric in its indices, whereas the Levi-Civita symbol is antisymmetric, forcing $c=0$.

The origin convention is necessary. For a ball centred at a nonzero vector $c$, its first moment would instead be $(4\pi a^3/3)c_i$, so the displayed claims implicitly refer to coordinates measured from its centre.

Use the vector triple product expression from part (a). Put $s=\Omega \cdot x$ and $r^2=x\cdot x$. Since $u=\Omega +\beta x$,Expanding $W=(u\cdot u)\Omega -(u\cdot \Omega )u$ and canceling the zeroth-order terms givesThe first bracket is odd in $x$ and integrates to zero over the centred ball. With $\alpha =4\pi a^5/15$, the Cartesian moments of a three-dimensional ball giveThereforeThe resulting vector is parallel to $\Omega$, as the rotational symmetry of the centred domain requires.