Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 8 1 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Assume . With , the method of characteristics gives . HenceLet and ; if , the conclusion is immediate. By the Hamiltonian energy balance, every image point of remains in the energy sublevelThis is a fixed compact ellipsoid in phase space. Therefore the support bound is uniform in time:This uniform support bound from a coercive conserved energy requires no explicit solution of the curves.
The nonzero-frequency qualification is necessary. At the energy does not control , and the equation is free transport equation. Choose a smooth compactly supported that is nonzero at with . Its transported value at stays nonzero, so the union of the supports is unbounded. Each individual support is compact, but there is no fixed compact support for all times.