Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 301 2 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
A Dirac-to-Weyl gamma-matrix similarity transform with the required signs isIt is a unitary matrix, with . Multiplication givesThe matrix commutes with every : their common block structure uses the same antisymmetric block matrix, and the scalar blocks of commute with each Pauli matrix. Hence , exactly the spatial matrices specified in the Weyl representation of the gamma matrices. A similarity transformation preserves every Clifford algebra relation, so no new consistency check is needed for the transformed representation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 301 2 d ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The commutator with the scalar metric term vanishes. Reorder the third gamma matrix using the Clifford algebra twice:Subtract the last term and multiply by to obtainThis is the infinitesimal vector transformation law implemented by the Spinor representation of the Lorentz group. The first contraction is as printed in the PDF; the TeX conversion's is erroneous and would fail, for example, when : the actual commutator is zero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 301 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use a local first-derivative Lagrangian density with sufficient differentiability, and let variations have compact support or vanish at the spacetime boundary. If the phrase “a function of the field” were read literally as forbidding derivatives, the equation below would reduce to ; a propagating field requires derivative dependence. Varying the action givesIntegration by parts and arbitrary interior variations yield the Euler-Lagrange field equation,The boundary condition is part of this derivation; if boundary variations are allowed, their separate boundary equations must also be imposed.
A variational symmetry of a Lagrangian density is an infinitesimal field change for which off shell. Equality to zero is sufficient but is not necessary: a divergence changes only the boundary contribution to the action. For fixed-coordinate field variations,Equating the two expressions proves the scalar-field form of the Noether theorem:Thus every differentiable one-parameter variational symmetry gives a conserved current, and its Noether charge is constant when the spatial boundary flux vanishes. This is the Noether current for a first-derivative scalar field; the same identity applies to several real components by summing over them. Identically conserved improvement terms can change its local expression without changing the charge under the same boundary assumptions.
For an active spacetime translation, and . If the Lagrangian density has no explicit coordinate dependence, , so . The Noether current is , whereThese four translation currents are the canonical stress-energy tensor, also called the energy-momentum tensor. The sign in follows from the chosen active translation; the translation charges themselves can be labelled by .
For the free real scalar field, take the standard kinetic term and mass term. Its Lagrangian density and Klein-Gordon equation areHere , so . Raising the charge index gives the four-momentum of a free real scalar field,The first is total energy, and the three components of the second are physical spatial momentum. With signature , ; this explains the opposite sign if the conserved quantities are instead written with lower spatial indices. For example, a plane wave proportional to has momentum density along , confirming the sign. All charges require convergence of the integrals and vanishing boundary flux, or periodic boundary conditions in a finite box.
For the complex scalar field, treat and as independent variables when varying, equivalently use their two real components. The global phase symmetry of a complex scalar field is , for constant . Both the kinetic term and are invariant. This is a global internal symmetry of a classical field theory with circle group ; a spacetime-dependent phase would require a gauge connection.
Choosing this orientation for the phase parameter gives the Noether charge of a complex scalar field:To check conservation directly, the Euler-Lagrange field equations are and their complex conjugates, assuming a real differentiable potential. Hence . Reversing the phase-parameter orientation reverses the current and charge, which is merely a convention. For a scalar carrying electric charge , the physical electric charge is after electromagnetic coupling. In a neutral theory the same global charge can instead label an internal conserved quantum number; the density alone does not identify it automatically with electricity.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 301 4 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For , the interaction picture has andThe trial solution works for arbitrary initial states precisely whenFor , the Dyson series writesIt is also : the cube consists of ordered simplexes with the same time-ordered integrand. Differentiating the nested integrals makes the latest operator the leftmost factor, leaving the -fold integral. Thus and at every nonconstant term vanishes. This proves the differentiation of the Dyson time-ordered exponential identity without incorrectly treating the generally noncommuting Hamiltonians as scalars.
For a Hermitian Hamiltonian operator, , so the initial condition makes a unitary operator. Evolution backwards in time is its inverse, with anti-time ordering. For bounded norm-continuous the series converges in operator norm and the differentiation is justified by the factorial estimates. In quantum field theory, unbounded operators and products of fields require domain or regulator assumptions; this computation is the formal perturbative identity unless those analytic assumptions are supplied.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 306 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Set . Work on the strip in conformal gauge, with worldsheet signature and target signature . In light-cone gauge in string theory, the independent fields are the transverse coordinates. Put the Neumann boundary condition at and the Dirichlet boundary condition at ; reversing the endpoints exchanges cosine and sine modes without changing the spectrum. The fixed endpoint is .
Varying the transverse Polyakov action gives and the spatial boundary contribution . At the free endpoint this vanishes precisely when ; at the fixed endpoint . Separation of variables then gives with , hence , . These are Neumann-Dirichlet open-string boundary conditions. No dynamical transverse worldsheet zero mode survives: a constant solution must equal the prescribed , and a linear-in- solution violates the free-end condition.
Write . The orthogonality relation reduces the action to independent harmonic oscillators:The canonical commutation relations determine normalized annihilation operators at Thus . These formulas derive the quantization from the action rather than import integer-moded open-string rules.
For the usual phased string oscillators, set and for . Then the half-integer open-string oscillator expansion and algebra areThe corresponding field momentum density is . Completeness of the mixed-boundary eigenfunctions gives , where . This is a distribution identity on the mixed-boundary function space, not an unrestricted value at a fixed endpoint with a Dirichlet boundary condition.
Classically, the transverse Virasoro algebra zero-mode generator isThere is no transverse momentum term. If the two light-cone directions are common directions with Neumann boundary conditions, the full zero-mode constraint adds : . This assumption about the longitudinal directions is needed to interpret oscillator levels as target-space masses.
Quantizing the symmetrically ordered transverse generator gives , where the string level operator is . Each harmonic oscillator contributes to the vacuum energy. Use zeta function regularization and the Riemann zeta function with the actual half-integer spectrum:Consequently the Neumann-Dirichlet string zero-point energy isIn the common convention , the normal-ordering constant of a string is . This positive shift differs from the vacuum energy of 24 integer-moded transverse bosons. The difference between those two vacuum energies is . To distinguish zero-mode conventions, the ND twist conformal weight is per transverse boson. With 24 bosons, the plane matter generator is ; its physical open-string condition is exactly the strip/light-cone constraint used here. The transverse plane and strip constants differ by the central charge shift . A common exponential frequency cutoff independently gives , confirming the finite part and avoiding invalid termwise manipulation of divergent sums.
Let . The lowest levels of a fully transverse ND bosonic string areThe third level has two excitations; there is no oscillator. Its indices are symmetric because the creation operators commute. With and the common longitudinal momentum convention, the rest energies and masses obeyAt fixed positive the corresponding light-cone energies are ; the table lists excitation levels, not a spectrum that remains discrete if longitudinal momentum is varied continuously.
The surviving transverse rotations form . The ground state is a scalar, the next level its vector, and the third level the symmetric square of the vector. Separating its trace givesThe trace state is proportional to ; subtracting this trace gives the 299-dimensional symmetric traceless square.
There is a qualification to the printed “little group”. The little group with mixed string boundary conditions must preserve the endpoints as well as momentum. These boundary conditions break the full 26-dimensional Lorentz group, so the massive states above cannot be classified as representations of the unbroken 26-dimensional massive little group . In a D1–D25 realization the common worldvolume has Lorentz group and trivial connected massive little group; acts on the ND coordinates as an internal rotation group. The scalar, vector and symmetric trace-free decomposition is under the surviving transverse SO(24), with this boundary-background qualification.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 1 g Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let . This set is nonempty and compact for , and the quadratic form is continuous. Its minimum is therefore attained.
For every nonzero in the nonnegative orthant, normalizing givesThe zero vector imposes no further condition. It follows that is a copositive matrix exactly when . Thus the feasible scalar set is , andBoth optima are attained. This copositive reformulation of an orthant Rayleigh minimum follows directly from homogeneity; it does not require invoking a duality theorem for the original nonconvex constraint.
The restriction to matters. For the matrix in part (a), this minimum is whereas the unrestricted smallest eigenvalue is .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Split the sign vector as . Multiplication of the two off-diagonal blocks givesbecause the two terms are the same real scalar. The map is a bijection between the feasible sign choices. ThereforeThis is the symmetric lifting of bipartite binary quadratic optimization to binary quadratic optimization. The factor is necessary: otherwise the two blocks would double the objective. No positive semidefiniteness of is assumed; generally its off-diagonal structure makes its quadratic form indefinite.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 339 2 f Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The Gram matrix representation and give . For a standard Gaussian random vector , each is a standard normal scalar, so the zero event has probability zero. Choose either sign convention at zero; the resulting vector is almost surely a feasible sign vector. Consequently almost surely.
The Gaussian sign-correlation identity givesThe last equality uses symmetry of the real matrices. HenceThe inverse sine is applied entrywise, not through spectral matrix functional calculus.
For completeness, the correlation coefficient identity has a geometric proof. If the angle between two unit vectors is , the isotropic Gaussian random vector direction in their two-dimensional span gives opposite signs on angular sectors with probability . Thus the sign product has expectation . Parallel and antiparallel pairs give the endpoint values and directly. This is Gaussian hyperplane rounding, and needs no independence between the rounded coordinates.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 340 5 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Absolute values are missing in the printed formula. For signed real blocks, the intended block mixed norm must beWithout them, at a block has value zero although it is nonzero, and a negative scalar has negative value. For nonintegral , a negative component may not even have a real power. The literal expression therefore is not a norm and does not define the claimed general convex problem. Even integer exponents do not fix all other in the stated range.
With the corrected norm, let be the Holder conjugate exponent: for and for . Blockwise Holder inequality, with equality from a norming block, givesThe duality of block mixed norms identifies the closed compact convex set and the projection residual from the Moreau decompositionFor , the dual blocks are Euclidean balls; for , they are cubes given by componentwise bounds . No injectivity or surjectivity of is required: compactness of the block product makes its linear image compact, and the strictly convex fidelity still gives a unique primal minimizer. For general , the Euclidean projection onto a dual block ball is not generally obtained by radial scaling, so the special clipping formula from the isotropic case should not be reused without further analysis.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ib Paper 4 1F Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
An eigenvalue of a matrix is a scalar for which for some nonzero eigenvector . Its corresponding eigenspace is
Write . The displayed matrix is the outer product , soIts column space is contained in and is nonzero because . Hence is a rank-one matrix.
The vector is an eigenvector with eigenvalue , and every vector in the orthogonal complement has eigenvalue . ThusSince is a direct sum of these eigenspaces, has an eigenbasis and is therefore a diagonalizable.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ia Paper 1 5A a ii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
This is the affine plane through , provided and are independent. The scalars are affine coordinates in those two directions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ia Paper 3 12B a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Let the new orthonormal basis satisfy . Then an th-rank tensor transforms bySince , the Hessian of a scalar obeys this law with two factors of .
An isotropic tensor is unchanged under every rotation. In three dimensions the most general isotropic tensors of ranks zero through three are respectively
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ia Paper 3 3B Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
A field is irrotational when . In definewhere is any path from to . The difference between two choices is the circulation around a closed loop. By the Stokes theorem it is the flux of through a spanning surface and hence zero. Thus is well-defined, , and differentiation gives .
If , every solution isfor an arbitrary differentiable scalar , since the difference is curl-free. A necessary condition is , because the divergence of a curl vanishes.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ib Paper 2 17B a Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Apply a one-step numerical method to the scalar test ordinary differential equationIf one step has the formthen is the stability function and the linear stability domain isThe method is A-stable whenso it does not amplify any mode that the exact differential equation does not amplify.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ib Paper 3 1E Solution Created 2026-09-23 Updated 2026-09-25
Fordefine its action on the projective line by the Möbius transformationwith the usual conventions when the denominator vanishes or . Matrix multiplication agrees with composition, so this is a group action. If fixes every projective point, then it fixes and , forcing , and fixing then gives . Thus the kernel consists exactly of the nonzero scalar matrices . The induced group homomorphismis therefore injective. This is the projective general linear group action on the projective line.
For ,The scalar subgroup has order , soThe four classes represented byform a subgroup of order four, hence a Sylow subgroup for the prime two. Its action is translation on and fixes . For , characteristic two makes this permutation a product of two disjoint transpositions on the four finite points. It is therefore even, andThis realizes the Sylow 2-subgroup of PGL2 over F4.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 160 1 c i Solution 2026-09-28
Conjugation by a permutation merely permutes the transpositions. Their sum is therefore a conjugacy class sum and belongs to the center of an associative algebra . Since the complex Specht module is an irreducible representation, Schur lemma says that acts on it as a scalar, say .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 ia Paper 1 7B b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
The characteristic polynomial of isA scalar is an eigenvalue when there is a nonzero vector such thatSuch a is an eigenvector belonging to . Equivalently, is a root of and the corresponding eigenvectors are the nonzero elements of .
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 ia Paper 3 12B iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2024 ia Paper 3 12B v Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Contracting two antisymmetric tensors gives the nonzero isotropic rank-four tensorA nonzero isotropic rank-five tensor is, for example,
More generally, one obtains the rank-five isotropic building blocks by choosing which two of the five indices belong to the Kronecker delta and putting the remaining three into the Levi-Civita symbol. There aresuch placements:Thus the unrestricted isotropic rank-five ansatz requires ten scalar component coefficients, one for each delta-epsilon placement.