Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ia Paper 3 9C b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Integrating the oscillatory term together with the constant components gives a potential of a conservative vector fieldDirect partial derivatives recover both components of , proving it is a conservative vector field. Its line integral is therefore path independent. At an integer endpoint , the sine term vanishes, so for any of the specified pathsAny other potential has the same gradient, so differs from by a constant on the connected plane. In particular every potential changes by under and by under . Equivalently the integral from to is , whereas a unit-periodic potential would make that difference zero. There is no potential periodic with period one in both coordinate directions. This is an example of how periods obstruct a periodic potential: a periodic vector field need not have a periodic potential.