Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 8 5 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write . On the dense polynomial algebra in , the Gaussian creation and annihilation operators areGaussian integration by parts gives . Their closed realizations are adjoints. More explicitly, for the orthonormal basis of normalized Probabilists' Hermite polynomials,Thus the closed annihilation operator has domain , and the closed creation operator has domain . These describe the same set of functions, the Gaussian Sobolev space, though the two operators differ. Directly on polynomials, , and
Use the standard carré du champ operator convention . The product rule for this semigroup generator givesso the requested squared-gradient and joint energy formulas, for real functions in the standard algebra, areFor complex functions the joint energy is sesquilinear, with in the second factor. If “squared gradient” is defined without the factor in the product-rule expression, its value is instead and the joint energy is one half of its integral; the joint energy and logarithmic Sobolev constant used here remain as displayed.
For the Gaussian logarithmic Sobolev inequality, first take smooth bounded with bounded first and second derivatives, bounded away from zero. The Mehler formula for the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck semigroup isIt preserves and differentiating in gives the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck gradient commutation identityPut . Differentiate its entropy functional. Since is constant, and Gaussian integration by parts applies,For such data, Mehler's formula and dominated convergence give as . The uniform positive upper and lower bounds justify integrating this limit inside the entropy, whose limit is zero. Hence
Apply the allowed weighted Cauchy-Schwarz inequality with :After integration, invariance of givesIntegrating in yieldsFor a real smooth compactly supported , take . ThenLetting provesSmooth approximation and cutoff in the Gaussian Sobolev norm extend this to the full form domain. The entropy is lower semicontinuous under the resulting convergence: the square densities converge in , their masses converge, and, along an almost-everywhere convergent subsequence, Fatou's lemma applies to after adding the bound . The same inequality for complex follows by applying it to and using the weak-derivative bound . Thus the constant is at most .
For sharpness of the Gaussian logarithmic Sobolev constant, take with real . These functions belong to the Gaussian Sobolev space. The Gaussian moment-generating function givesThereforeThe entropy-to-energy ratio is exactly , so no smaller constant can work. Combining this lower bound with the proved inequality gives