Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 ia Paper 3 7D Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
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Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 ia Paper 3 6E Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
Write a member of the special linear group as with . Its Möbius transformation is , with the usual values at a pole and at infinity. For nonreal ,This follows by multiplying numerator and denominator by . Thus the sign of the imaginary part is preserved, while the extended real line is preserved as a set.
Fixing zero requires . Therefore its stabilizer subgroup and group orbit areTranslations send zero to each finite real point, and sends it to infinity.
For , comparing real and imaginary parts gives and , with . Exactly the same conditions follow from . HenceFor any and , the upper triangular matrixsends to and to . Therefore the two group orbits are the open complex upper half-plane and the open lower half-plane respectively. Along with the extended real line they exhaust the Riemann sphere, so there are exactly three orbits, the real determinant-one Möbius orbits.
Every has the form and acts by . Thus is the entire complex upper half-plane, by the same explicit matrices . Given , choose such that . Then fixes , so and . This proves the triangular-rotation factorization of real determinant-one matrices.
For uniqueness, if , then . An upper triangular rotation matrix must have , soThere are consequently exactly two matrix factorizations, and . Restricting the first diagonal entry of to be positive makes the factorization unique. For example, if and , that unique branch isAngles are understood modulo when counting matrices; allowing unrestricted real angle representatives gives infinitely many labels for those same two factorizations.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 12 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let , and . Cut the Riemann sphere along arcs joining three marked points, say , so the complement is simply connected. Take copies labeled by the elements of and glue the slit banks with monodromies given by left multiplication by . The product relation ensures consistency. The surface is connected because generate . At a puncture with monodromy order , fill each cycle using the local complex coordinate ; use the analogous charts at the other two punctures. This constructs the three-branch-point regular surface cover .
Right multiplication by inverses defines a left action of , commutes with the monodromy gluing and extends holomorphically over the filled points. Average a compatible metric over this finite group to obtain a metric for which acts by Riemannian isometries. When the genus is at least two, the unique compatible curvature-minus-one metric from the uniformization theorem is an invariant choice. Away from the three marked fibers the action is free. The nontrivial stabilizer subgroups are the conjugates of , and , of orders , omitting order-one groups.
There are , , points over the corresponding branch points. The Riemann-Hurwitz formula givesThis construction also covers the spherical and toroidal cases. If one monodromy has order one it is simply an unbranched marked fiber, with no nontrivial stabilizer.
For the supplied coset actions, faithfulness gives . Compose permutations with the rightmost factor acting first. The two products have cycle decompositionsThus . The index is twelve and each subgroup has order eight, so . ConsequentlyAll cycles of on each coset set have the full orders . No nontrivial power of any of these branch monodromies fixes a coset. The fixed-coset criterion means that each has trivial intersection with every conjugate of each cyclic branch stabilizer. Since these are all stabilizers on , both act freely. Their quotient surfaces are therefore smooth closed surfaces, not cone-point orbifolds. Sunada theorem supplies isospectrality, and the unbranched Euler characteristic formula givesChoose the hyperbolic metric for these surfaces and their common genus-nine cover.
In this natural construction the two genus-two surfaces are isometric, by an orientation-reversing map. Define the sheet permutationDirect composition verifiesComplex conjugation of the base sphere fixes its three real branch points and reverses the two chosen generating loops, so their monodromies become the inverses. These identities supply a lift, after relabeling sheets by , to an anticonformal map between the two branched covers. It extends across the branch points by the local power charts. An anticonformal map between closed hyperbolic Riemann surfaces is a Riemannian isometry, by uniqueness of the compatible hyperbolic metric.
Equivalently, take the hyperbolic triangle group of signature . Reflection in the side joining the two order-three vertices conjugates its two vertex rotations to their inverses. The displayed sheet permutation identifies the reflected subgroup for the first covering with the subgroup for the second, up to an irrelevant change of base sheet. This is the orientation-reversing equivalence of branched-cover monodromy. The exhibited isometry is anticonformal, so the conclusion is about Riemannian isometry, without asserting that this map is holomorphic. Merely knowing the subgroups were almost conjugate would not have settled isometry; the explicit inverse-monodromy symmetry does. Nor does the data force this symmetry for every arbitrarily chosen invariant deformation of the cover's metric: it is present for the constructed hyperbolic metric.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 27 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Write and , with the lattice sums taken over nonzero lattice elements. Reindexing the normally convergent series shows that the Weierstrass elliptic function is an even function, and consequently is an odd function. Expanding near zero and cancelling the odd lattice sums gives the Laurent coefficients of the Weierstrass elliptic functionThus the elliptic function has no pole at zero and its constant term is . By periodicity it has no poles anywhere. An entire elliptic function is bounded on a fundamental parallelogram and hence everywhere, so Liouville theorem makes it constant. This proves the Weierstrass elliptic differential equation
We first verify that the cubic is smooth, rather than presupposing it when using its group law. There are three nonzero two-torsion points of a complex torus . Oddness and periodicity imply . Since has a triple pole and no other poles on the torus, value multiplicity of an elliptic function says that these three distinct zeros exhaust its zeros and are simple. Put . Each has a double zero at , since and the zero of is simple. If with , this same function would have at least four zeros counted with multiplicity, although its only pole is double. Therefore the half-period values of the Weierstrass elliptic function are distinct. They are roots of , so all its roots are distinct and the affine curve is a smooth algebraic curve. Its projective closure isIt has the single point at infinity. The derivative with respect to of the defining homogeneous polynomial is nonzero at , proving smoothness there too.
For any finite value , value multiplicity of an elliptic function gives exactly two solutions of , counting multiplicities. Evenness supplies the pair . At a nonzero half-period these coincide and the zero is double; elsewhere they are distinct. An even elliptic function therefore descends to a meromorphic function of on the Riemann sphere. To justify descent at a half-period, put : both and are even in , and is times a nonvanishing even analytic function. The local Laurent series of is consequently meromorphic in the coordinate . At zero the same argument uses . Every meromorphic function on the Riemann sphere is a rational function, proving that even elliptic functions are rational in the Weierstrass function.
For an arbitrary elliptic function , its even part is . Its odd part divided by is an even meromorphic function, hence is with rational. We have therefore proved the elliptic function-field decompositionUniqueness follows by taking even and odd parts. In particular the field of elliptic functions is .
Define and elsewhere on . Periodicity makes the map well defined. Near zero, the projective chart has coordinates and , so the extension is holomorphic. The fiber description above proves injectivity: the two candidates are distinguished by unless they coincide at a half-period. It also proves surjectivity, since every occurs and the two derivatives are the two allowed values, with at a branch value.
Finally, a nonvertical line pulls back to the elliptic function , whose only pole is triple at zero. Its three zeros , counted with intersection multiplicity, satisfy modulo by the zero-pole sum of an elliptic function. On the cubic, reflection corresponds to . The chord-and-tangent group law therefore gives . Vertical lines give inverse pairs; tangencies are included through repeated zeros, and the identity cases follow from the extension at zero. This completes the Weierstrass uniformization by half-period values: is a group isomorphism.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 51 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Use a mostly-plus target Minkowski spacetime metric and restore the string tension by . After Wick rotation, the Polyakov action on a Riemann surface isThe Polyakov path integral integrates over embeddings and worldsheet metrics, dividing by worldsheet diffeomorphisms and Weyl transformations. For a consistent flat bosonic string theory, take the critical dimension of the bosonic string . Conformal gauge turns the embedding fields into free scalars; its Faddeev-Popov determinant is represented by the bc system. The remaining integrations are over worldsheet moduli and external insertion points.
A tachyon vertex operator isThe worldsheet Green function is . The operator product expansion with the holomorphic stress-energy tensor gives conformal weights . An integrated string vertex operator must have weights , so the mass-shell condition is , or tachyonic mass parameter .
At lowest order in the string coupling, the worldsheet is a Riemann sphere. For four external states, three insertion points can be fixed by a Möbius transformation. In the worldsheet ghost field description these three vertices carry , while the fourth is integrated. The three-point worldsheet ghost correlator gives the squared product of the three fixed-point separations, precisely the sphere gauge fixing for four string vertices factor. Thus fixing three points is a gauge choice, rather than deleting three integrations without their Jacobian.
The integral over the constant embedding worldsheet zero mode gives . The remaining Gaussian integral, using normal ordering to remove self-contractions, gives the Koba-Nielsen factorSet ; the vertex at infinity is defined with its conformal-weight factor. Let all momenta be incoming and defineThe mass-shell condition and momentum conservation imply . Since and similarly for the pair , the sphere tachyon position integral becomesHere depends on the normalization of external string vertex operators; it does not affect the kinematic dependence.
To evaluate the remaining worldsheet modulus, put and . The complex beta integral isFor example, this identity follows by writing the two powers as Schwinger-parameter Gamma integrals, doing the two-dimensional Gaussian integral, and changing the two positive parameters to their sum and ratio. The complex beta integral first holds for and ; the scattering result is its analytic continuation. The third gamma-function argument is . Absorbing into , the result is the tree-level four-tachyon amplitude, the Virasoro–Shapiro amplitude:It is symmetric in the three Mandelstam variables and has generic poles at , matching the bosonic string mass spectrum. The formula is the leading term of string perturbation theory. Higher orders are constructed by the same Polyakov path integral prescription on higher-genus worldsheets, with four marked points and the corresponding ghost and worldsheet moduli measure; genus has coupling power .