Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 30 2 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Let be the increasing events that an infinite simple open ray in a graph starts at the indicated side and immediately leaves the box, with all later graph vertices outside it. A corner exit is assigned according to the direction of its outgoing edge. The four events have the same probability by rotational symmetry. Their union is from the preceding step.
The Harris-FKG inequality applies to these exterior-ray events by approximation with finite connections to larger boxes and passage to decreasing limits. Positive association of the four decreasing events , by iterating the Harris-FKG inequality, givesEquivalently, one may apply the preceding square-root bound for increasing events first to the two opposite-side unions and then to the two individual sides of one pair. ThereforeA union bound now showsChoose such that . ThenThe infinite exterior clusters touched by these two sides need not be the same. The same argument works for dual boxes and any sufficiently large size; this permits the matching primal/dual contours used in the full proof.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 30 2 b Solution 2026-10-07
For bond percolation, let be the percolation cluster of the origin. Its percolation probability isWe prove by alternating arms at the self-dual parameter, using the uniqueness of the infinite percolation cluster proved in Question 4. Suppose instead that .
At , declaring a dual edge open exactly when its crossing primal edge is closed produces independent dual bond percolation with the same parameter on . It therefore also has an infinite percolation cluster almost surely, and at most one. The two preliminary arguments below imply that, for a sufficiently large square, the probability of two primal infinite exterior arms starting through its top and bottom sides exceeds . Applying the same arguments to the dual lattice gives probability greater than for dual infinite exterior arms starting through the left and right sides. Thus all four arms occur together with positive probability, by the union bound.
Here are precise boundary conventions for the alternating exterior-arm separation lemma. Use the primal graph vertex box , the dual graph vertex box , and the common continuous square with sides at . The primal arms first cross its top and bottom; the dual arms first cross its left and right. Subsequent graph vertices of every arm lie outside this continuous square. Large gives the required probabilities for both boxes, by the same rotational symmetry and boundary-side estimate. Primal open paths and dual open paths cannot cross, since the two states of a crossing edge are complementary.
The two primal arms cannot meet in the exterior. If they did, a finite simple primal crosscut in the exterior would join the top and bottom entry points. Together with one of the two arcs of the square boundary it would enclose a bounded region containing one of the dual entry points. That dual exterior arm could not reach infinity without crossing the primal crosscut or the forbidden square interior. This is the alternating exterior-arm separation lemma. Thus the two primal arms are disjoint.
Now modify only the primal edges with both endpoints in , making them open. Their grid supplies a simple interior path joining the two primal arm roots. The unchanged exterior arms and this connector form a proper doubly infinite simple primal path. Such a path separates the plane into two sides, by the Jordan curve theorem applied to its one-point compactification in the sphere. The left and right dual arms lie on opposite sides. Preserve their tails from their first exterior dual graph vertices; none of those tails crosses a modified edge. Their original boundary attachment edges may be destroyed, but the infinite exterior tails themselves remain. They now belong to two distinct infinite dual clusters, since any dual connection between them would have to cross the doubly infinite primal path.
This modification has positive probability by the finite-energy property of Bernoulli percolation: condition on the exterior configuration and open the finitely many interior edges. The exterior projections of the four-arm event have positive probability. The resulting positive-probability event with two infinite dual clusters contradicts uniqueness of the infinite percolation cluster on the dual lattice. Therefore
An opened connector separates two infinite dual tails
. Only the selected paths are drawn. The black connector lies in the finitely modified box; the two blue infinite dual tails remain outside and on opposite sides.
The proof uses self-duality, symmetry, positive association, finite-energy property of Bernoulli percolation and uniqueness; it does not assume the Harris-Kesten theorem as a black box. The boundary language means an infinite ray whose first graph vertex is on the side and all later graph vertices are outside the graph vertex box. It cannot mean literal intersection of two disjoint sets, a closed box boundary and its strict complement.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 32 4 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
An effective bandwidth converts a traffic distribution and a quality-of-service requirement into a capacity requirement, penalizing bursts as well as mean load. Let be the traffic generated in one observation interval and assume its moment-generating function is finite for some positive parameters. Write . The Chernoff bound follows immediately from Markov's inequality applied to :Optimizing gives , where the supremum is restricted to finite exponential moments. This exhibits the effective bandwidth as the load appropriate to exponential tail control, not an extra physical stream of traffic.
For the mean and peak limits of effective bandwidth, if exponential moments exist near zero, the cumulant-generating function expansion isFor small , , with the variance giving the first burstiness correction. convexity of and show that its secant slope is nondecreasing; Jensen's inequality also gives .
If is bounded with essential supremum , then . For any , the probability is positive andLet and then . For large , , so very stringent exponential tail control approaches peak provisioning. If traffic is unbounded and every positive exponential moment is finite, the same lower-bound argument gives . If exponential moments cease to exist beyond a finite parameter, is infinite there; one cannot assign a finite large- peak interpretation to that traffic.
For example, deterministic traffic has . A burst of size with Bernoulli distribution probability giveswhich moves from to . For Poisson packet count of mean and packet size , , showing a mean limit but no finite peak limit.
For independent traffic sources, logarithmic generating functions add, so effective bandwidths add. For arrivals in a window of length , use the rate-valued definition . A resource with rate capacity then satisfiesThus a sufficient admission condition for a target probability is for some . Independence is needed for this additive form; correlated sources require the joint exponential moment.
A queue involves a supremum over time windows, not merely one fixed window. For independent identically distributed discrete-time traffic increments , constant service , and stationary workloadthe workload Chernoff bound for independent increments follows from a union bound:, whenever ,The requirement is precisely . This explains why effective bandwidth is useful for buffer and delay design: the relevant time scale and tail parameter depend on the service rule and target overflow risk. A single-window bound cannot be silently substituted for an infinite-horizon workload bound.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 9 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
It suffices to prove the assertion after replacing by : that replacement gives a tighter interval. Thus assume and , and putAt , let count isolated vertices in . The same indicator random variable calculation as for all isolated vertices givesBy the Chebyshev inequality, with high probability. Since eventually, the marked vertices are then not all connected.
At , the logarithmic-regime giant component result applies with and any fixed . Its unique giant component misses vertices. On the event that it misses at most twice that number, exchangeability makes the missed vertex set uniform conditional on its size. A union bound therefore givesThus all of is connected at with high probability.
For the uniform random graph process, assign uniform labels to the edges of the complete graph as independent random variables and reveal them in label order. The binomial random graph is the prefix containing the labels at most , where has a binomial distribution with parameters and . Its variance at is , whereas the gap between and the relevant endpoint is . The Chebyshev inequality gives and with high probability, with harmless integer rounding. The monotone graph property that all marked vertices are connected now impliesThe marked-set connectivity threshold is lower than the threshold for connecting every vertex, because only about specified vertices need to avoid the small graph components.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 9 1 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Put and . The hypothesis implies . For the number of isolated vertices, the isolated vertices in the Erdős-Rényi model formulas giveThus the Chebyshev inequality gives with high probability, uniformly over the specified range.
The Cayley formula supplies a spanning tree on any connected vertex set. Consequently the expected value of the number of graph components of order is bounded byChoose a fixed with . For , with , the binomial coefficient bound givesHere . The geometric series and a union bound therefore exclude this entire size range, since . For , an empty graph cut would be necessary. Its total probability is at mostThere are consequently no graph components of orders between and , with high probability.
For each fixed , a graph component containing a graph cycle has a spanning tree and at least one extra edge. Counting that extra edge gives an expected value ; hence every small graph component is a tree component. The total number of vertices in tree components of orders satisfiesThe Markov inequality gives with high probability. When , this sum is empty and . Since , the remaining vertices must lie in one graph component larger than . It is unique, and its order is . Every other graph component is a tree with at most vertices. This is the logarithmic-regime giant component mechanism: almost all missing vertices are isolated.
