Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2024 / Paper 2 / 5 / b / Solution

Take the causal solution, extending the input and output by zero before the device starts at $t=0$. The two zero initial conditions ensure that this extension adds no impulsive terms to the first two distributional derivatives. The Fourier transform of a derivative is multiplication by $i\omega$, soFactoring the quadratic and taking partial fraction decomposition yieldsThe inverse Fourier transform follows directly by integrating decaying exponentials:where $H$ is the Heaviside step function. This damped-oscillator impulse response has $R(0^{+})=0$ and $R^{\prime }(0^{+})=1$, as required for a unit impulse.