Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 216 3 e Solution 2026-09-28
Part c gives the integral representationThe integrand vanishes on the diagonal . Thus the assumed off-diagonal Peskun ordering impliesfor every .
On the mean-zero subspace, the variational characterization of the spectral gap of a positive reversible kernel isIt follows immediately thatEquivalently, the energy inequality says in the Löwner order on . Positivity permits the operator monotonicity of the square root and hence ; the spectral representations in the question identify the top spectral values and give the same gap inequality.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 358 2 a Solution 2026-09-28
A projection-valued measure on the Borel sets of is a map into the orthogonal projections on a separable Hilbert space such thatand for pairwise disjoint ,for every , with convergence in norm.
The spectral theorem for normal operators on a separable Hilbert space states that a bounded normal operator has a unique projection-valued measure supported on for whichMore generally, the Borel functional calculus for a normal operator is
For , the scalar spectral measures areIf is self-adjoint, its spectrum and hence the support of lie in . Moreover,so is a positive measure, andThe paper prints total mass ; with the standard definition it is , so the unsquared norm is a typographical error.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 iii Paper 358 2 b Solution 2026-09-28
Let and be the projection-valued measures of and . Using the projection , defineThe scalar spectral measures converge weakly whenfor every bounded continuous function and every . By the spectral theorem for normal operators on a separable Hilbert space, this is equivalent to
The assumed moment identities say precisely that this convergence holds for every monomial . It follows by linearity for every polynomial. For , the identity givesso Markov inequality makes the positive measures tight. Higher even moments similarly control the tails of any fixed polynomial.
Given a bounded continuous and , choose so that the measure tails are uniformly small. The Weierstrass approximation theorem supplies a polynomial withMoment convergence handles ; tightness and a sufficiently high even moment handle the two tails. Hence . The polarization identity then gives the same conclusion for . This proves weak convergence of scalar spectral measures.
The assertion fails if only is assumed. Let , let , take , and letThe reversal matrices are self-adjoint unitaries. For fixed ,because the finite head of one vector is paired with the vanishing tail of the other. Thus the condition holds. However, , soin general. Taking shows that the spectral measures do not converge weakly.
Scalar spectral measure 2026-09-28
For a projection-valued measure and vectors , the scalar spectral measure is the complex measure . The positive measure has total mass .
Spectral projector 2026-09-28
A spectral projector is the value of the projection-valued measure of a normal operator on a measurable part of its spectrum. In finite dimension, the spectral projector onto an eigenspace extracts the corresponding eigenvector component.