Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 iii Paper 316 4 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Let , , , , , and . Zero row sums put in the form used in the spectrum of a three-dimensional matrix with zero row sums. In particular, . DefineExpanding the characteristic polynomial gives , soFor the physical coefficients, with . Thus gives positive diagonal symmetrization of a matrix, andConsequently the eigenvalues are real and nonpositive, and has a complete eigenvector basis. This justifies the mode expansion in part (i).