Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge 2003 Paper 1 7 Solution Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
Multiplication by puts the eigenvalue problem into Sturm-Liouville form, , with weight . If correspond to distinct eigenvalues , subtract their multiplied equations and integrate to getThe upper boundary term vanishes by the Dirichlet boundary condition. For a bounded solution near zero, has a limit because is integrable. A nonzero limit would force a divergence in , so that limit is zero; integration then gives . The lower boundary term therefore also vanishes, proving the weighted orthogonality.
Set . For , , and finiteness of gives . Thus with zero values at zero and . The radial Dirichlet spectrum in three dimensions givesThe zero and negative eigenvalues yield only the zero solution under these boundary conditions. Also .
For the forced equation, the same substitution gives . The Fourier sine series of on has coefficientsExpanding gives , henceThe value at zero is defined by a limit. In fact , so uniform convergence holds even there, by comparison with . An independent check comes from solving the constant-coefficient equation directly:It satisfies both endpoint conditions and the forcing for , and its finite origin limit agrees with the series. For the homogeneous boundary value problem has no nonzero solution, so the solution is unique.
Multiplication by gives the Sturm-Liouville formso the weight is . Use the weighted inner product and the Sturm-Liouville operator . Integration by parts gives its boundary form:The upper endpoint term vanishes by the Dirichlet boundary conditions, and the lower one vanishes for the regular solutions. More precisely, the radial Dirichlet spectrum in three dimensions identifies under the unitary transformation with on with zero endpoint values; this specifies the self-adjoint realization at the singular endpoint as well as proving the formal identity.
For eigenfunctions with different eigenvalues, the same identity gives . Taking real eigenfunctions proves the required orthogonality of Sturm-Liouville eigenfunctions.
Set . Direct differentiation gives , so . Finiteness of at zero requires , and the other endpoint gives . The Dirichlet eigenvalues are positive: integration by parts gives , and a nonzero cannot have zero right-hand side. Thus , and the second endpoint givesDefine by its limit. This is the radial Dirichlet spectrum in three dimensions with radius . Its weighted squared norm is .