Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 61 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Assume is normalized and the Hilbert space has dimension . The rank-one orthogonal projection satisfies and .
For , has eigenvalue zero on the orthogonal complement of , so it cannot be a unitary operator. The complementary orthogonal projection kills and is not unitary in any positive dimension. In contrast, the Householder reflectionis Hermitian and obeys . Its eigenvalues are along and on the orthogonal complement.
For , only is unitary. In the exceptional one-dimensional case, is also unitary; its complement remains zero.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 61 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Since is a unitary operator, its eigenstates form an orthonormal basis. Expand , with eigenphases . By linearity, the unmeasured quantum phase estimation output isThis is generally an entangled state, not a phase label attached to an unchanged pure system state. The distinct eigenvalues give distinct phase labels, so a computational basis measurement yields with Born rule probability and leaves in the system register. Before measurement, all relative phases remain coherent; that is essential for the following spectral transformation. If phases were degenerate, a measured label would instead select the corresponding eigenspace component.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 7 4 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use the genuine planar Givens rotationIn the second component the cosine multiplies : the repeated in the printed formula is an error. With that printed expression, at the pair becomes , which does not preserve length or measure. The rotation-based claims require the corrected expression. Also take , since the normalization by is undefined for .
Let and . The change of variables formula and determinant one give . Thus each is a unitary operator, with adjoint . The Kac collision operator is the averageThe Minkowski integral inequality gives , so is bounded. For the Hilbert space inner product, integration and the angular change giveHence and . In fact a nonzero radial Gaussian function is fixed by every rotation, showing . Angular averages can be understood as strong Bochner integrals; continuity of rotations in follows first for smooth compactly supported functions, then by density.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 14 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use probability measure-preserving systems: is measurable and . Its invariant sigma-algebra isErgodicity means that every invariant measurable set has measure zero or one:Equivalently, every invariant measurable function is constant almost everywhere. Indeed all rational sublevel sets of a real invariant function belong to , so the zero-or-one alternative forces its distribution to concentrate at one value. Apply this to real and imaginary parts for complex functions. Conversely, an invariant set has an invariant indicator, so the function criterion implies the set criterion. This is the invariant-function characterization of ergodicity.
For an irrational rotation of the circle, with , an invariant has Fourier coefficients satisfyingFor the multiplier is nonzero. Completeness of the Fourier series basis therefore makes constant. Apply this to an invariant indicator to prove the irrational rotation is ergodic. A second example is the cyclic permutation of points with equal masses: a nonempty invariant set contains the whole cycle and hence has measure one.
The identity on with Lebesgue measure is not ergodic, since is invariant and has measure . Nor is rotation by on the circle: the setis invariant and has measure . These examples also show why preservation of measure does not imply ergodicity.
Let be the Koopman operator, , and setThe Von Neumann mean ergodic theorem says that, for , these Cesaro averages converge in to the orthogonal projection onto the invariant functions:For an invertible system, is a unitary operator. The Hilbert-space theorem states more generally that the Cesaro averages of any unitary operator converge strongly to its fixed-space projection.
Here is the requested invertible-case proof. Since ,Thus the orthogonal decomposition for unitary ergodic averages isOn the first summand, . On a vector , telescoping givesBecause , approximation extends this convergence to the closure of the range. The orthogonal decomposition now proves the theorem for every . An invariant function is -measurable, and an -measurable function is invariant by approximation with indicators; hence the projection is the stated conditional expectation.
In an ergodic system, invariant functions are constants by the criterion already proved. Their orthogonal projection is obtained by taking the inner product with , whose norm is one. Therefore the ergodic limit is the space average:
The Birkhoff ergodic theorem states that, for ,The limit is invariant, integrable, and has the same integral as . On a probability space convergence also holds in . In an ergodic system the limit is almost everywhere.
For the topological sharpening, take a continuous map on a compact metric space. Unique ergodicity means there is exactly one invariant Borel probability measure . The uniform ergodic convergence for uniquely ergodic systems says that every continuous real or complex satisfiesThus convergence holds at every point and uniformly in that point. The continuity, compactness and continuous-observable hypotheses belong to this theorem; it is not a claim of uniform convergence for all measurable functions.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 66 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use one-bit remote preparation of real qubit states. Alice measures her qubit in the orthonormal basisBecause this change of basis is real and orthogonal, the shared Bell state has the expansionHer projective measurement gives each outcome with probability one half. She sends for the first outcome and for the second. Bob's conditional pure state is respectively or .
For Bob does nothing. For he applies the fixed unitary operatorwhere is the Pauli Y gate. Bob need not know , because this correction is the same for all real . Both outcomes produce the exact density operator , using one classical bit and only local operations.
This remote state preparation consumes the shared entangled state. Before receiving the bit, Bob has the mixture , independent of , as required by quantum no-signalling. The real-state restriction is what permits a fixed unitary correction of the orthogonal outcome.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 67 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let and be its complement, with Hilbert-space dimension . Use Haar twirling conditional expectation to defineThis is an operator supported on . The normalization is essential: the partial trace alone would not fix an operator already supported on .
Subtract the integrand from and use the operator norm triangle inequality. Since and every unitary operator has norm one, the assumed Lieb-Robinson bound, applied to a unitary supported on the entire complement, givesThe factor was bounded by ; there is no sum over sites and hence no volume-dependent prefactor.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 67 3 d Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use an -qubit state as the witness. Uniformly choose a term and perform the two-outcome positive operator-valued measure . Regard the second outcome as an energy flag. For witness , its probability isThis is an efficient local-energy measurement verification: a unitary operator on the relevant qubits and one ancilla qubit can implement the measurement using the isometryThe local dimension is constant; the term matrices and the measurement can be approximated to inverse-polynomial accuracy. Uniform choice of and the classical threshold comparison also have polynomial overhead.
SetIn the nontrivial case , is inverse-polynomial. Cases outside this energy range are decided directly from .
Ask for witness registers, measure an independently sampled local term on each, and accept if the mean number of energy flags is at most . An honest product ground state on a YES instance has flag probability at most . The Hoeffding inequality gives failure at most . For completeness, the required Bernoulli concentration estimate follows by bounding the centered log moment-generating function : and is a tilted Bernoulli variance, at most . Hence ; exponential Markov's inequality optimized at yields , and the lower-tail version follows in the same way.
Soundness must also cover entangled witness registers. The averaged flag effect is . All its eigenvalues are at least on a NO instance. The repeated verifier's acceptance effect is a polynomial in the commuting tensor-factor operators and . In their product eigenbasis its eigenvalues are lower-tail probabilities of independent Bernoulli variables whose parameters are each at least . Their lower tail is bounded by the identical-parameter tail at , using the same uniform-variable coupling as in QMA parallel repetition with entangled witnesses. Therefore its operator norm is at most , which bounds acceptance for any entangled witness.
Choosinggives completeness at least and soundness at most . A slightly larger constant absorbs implementation errors; for example, approximate each flag effect in norm to at most , retain a gap at least , and increase by a constant factor. The total witness length and circuit size are polynomial. Thus
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 323 3 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The absolute value of an operator, trace norm, and operator norm are respectivelyThe positive square root of an operator makes well defined. Its eigenvalues are the singular values of , so and .
Use the polar decomposition of a bounded operator , with the given unitary operator . In an orthonormal eigenbasis for ,The operator norm assumption and unitarity imply . The triangle inequality therefore yields the required trace estimate:Choosing attains equality, which also gives the finite-dimensional trace duality formula . A singular causes no difficulty: in a finite-dimensional square space the polar factor can be extended to a unitary operator on the complementary subspaces.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 324 2 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Take to be normalized and let be the orthogonal projection onto the good subspace. The two reflection operators areThe first fixes the hyperplane orthogonal to and negates its normal direction. The second fixes and negates . Both are Hermitian operators and unitary operators, since their defining projectors square to themselves. For a non-normalized nonzero vector, divide by .
Put , with , and define normalized orthogonal good and bad vectorsThen . The amplitude amplification theorem states that the iterate satisfies, for every nonnegative integer ,To prove it, the span of is invariant under both reflection operators. In that ordered orthonormal basis,Multiplying the second matrix into advances the angle by . Induction proves the formula, and projecting onto gives . The minus sign in is just a global phase choice, but it makes the displayed state formula exact.
If is known, choose nearest to , with . The final angle is within of , so . For , this is at least after iterations, and is close to one when is small. For , measuring the initial state already has success above . Repeated independent attempts with a success test give any fixed desired success probability. This is the quadratic improvement of amplitude amplification over repeated sampling, which takes attempts. At there is no good component to amplify, and at the initial state is already entirely good; these endpoint cases do not require the undefined normalized component vectors.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 324 4 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For first-order two-local Hamiltonian simulation, regard each term as a Hermitian operator, as is standard for a local-Hamiltonian decomposition. The Lie-Trotter product formula for bounded operators statesin operator norm; the reversed factor ordering is just as valid as the displayed one. Take and use the circuitEach factor is a unitary operator on at most two qubits and hence is one allowed two-qubit gate, with a spectator identity for a one-qubit term. The factors in the rightmost part of each written product act first. Merely quoting the limit would not establish the requested rate, so we give a quantitative error bound.
For two Hermitian operators and , differentiatinggives . The commutator identity obtained by differentiating implies . Since the surrounding factors are unitary, integration yields the first-order unitary product-formula error boundSplitting the terms successively and using the triangle inequality therefore gives the one-step estimatefor . Here submultiplicativity of the operator norm gives . The ordering chosen for the products changes the sign of local commutators, not this norm bound. Applying part (i) to the steps givesChoose . For the error is strictly below ; is exact already with . The quantum circuit contains two-qubit gates. A sufficient gate count isThus the worst-case polynomial degree in this first-order bound is six. Terms with disjoint supports commute and may improve the count in particular decompositions, but the stated assumptions alone suffice for this bound, without a further sparsity or bounded-degree condition. The requested gate model allows arbitrary two-qubit unitaries, so no additional compilation error is incurred here.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 324 4 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
The spectral norm is the induced Euclidean operator norm:It is the largest singular value. From the definition, multiplying on either side by a unitary operator leaves the norm unchanged: right multiplication permutes the unit sphere of possible inputs, and left multiplication preserves output lengths. In particular every unitary operator has norm one.
For unitary product telescoping, replace the factors one at a time. With empty products interpreted as the identity,All cross terms cancel. By the triangle inequality and unitary invariance of the spectral norm,This bound is independent of the dimension and does not assume that any of the factors commute.
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 324 3 b i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let denote the coherent exact quantum phase estimation unitary operator from the preceding part, with the data quantum register written first. For every eigenvector of ,because and lies in , with no phase-aliasing ambiguity. Apply coherently to the input quantum state and a clean quantum register; do not measure the eigenvalue label. By linearity it produces .
Append a quantum ancilla in , and use the provided quantum variable rotation with , choosing the nonnegative cosine. The resulting normalized quantum state isThe sum covers both terms; this fixes the potentially ambiguous sum placement in the abbreviated display. The orthonormal basis of eigenvectors and the unit length of each rotated quantum ancilla show that its norm is one. This is quantum spectral filtering by multiplication, not the reciprocal rotation used in the HHL algorithm.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 305 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Use the Minkowski metric throughout. Taking the Hermitian conjugation of the massive Dirac equation and using the Dirac adjoint givesTaking the matrix transpose and multiplying by the charge conjugation matrix yieldsThus the charge conjugation of a Dirac field preserves the free massive Dirac equation:The unitarity of and also giveConsequentlyHere is the unitary operator acting on the relativistic quantum field, whereas acts on Dirac spinor indices.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 305 1 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The bosonic annihilation operator removes a vector particle of four-momentum and polarization vector . The bosonic creation operator creates its antiparticle with the same four-momentum and polarization label. The polarization vector describes the corresponding spin-one mode expansion of a free field.
Because charge conjugation acts through a unitary operator, it leaves the numerical polarization vector coefficients unchanged. Applying the specified charge conjugation to the operators givesComparison with the Hermitian conjugation of the original expansion therefore givesThe factor is the intrinsic charge-conjugation phase.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 305 1 f Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
The flavour-diagonal weak neutral current coupled to the real Z boson has real vector and axial current couplings. With , part (e) shows that this tree-level interaction is invariant under CP symmetry, although the simultaneous presence of the Dirac current and axial current generally violates charge conjugation and parity symmetry in quantum field theory separately. This conclusion concerns the tree-level weak neutral current, rather than every interaction or radiative effect in the Standard Model.
The weak charged current couples distinct quark flavours and involves the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix:Here and are left-handed quark fields. A CP symmetry transformation exchanges the two conjugate-field operators; because it acts through a unitary operator, it does not complex-conjugate their numerical coefficients. Equality with the original interaction therefore requires a Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix that can be made real by quantum field rephasings. With three generations, a physical CP-violating phase remains in general, measured by the Jarlskog invariant. Therefore the W boson interactions can violate CP symmetry. Merely seeing a complex coefficient is insufficient: the phase must survive quantum field rephasing, unlike the real two-generation Cabibbo angle rotation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 335 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
In time reversal acoustics, the array records the incoming signal, reverses each recorded time trace, and re-emits it through the same medium. This is phase conjugation in the frequency domain. For the time-harmonic wave convention , reversing a real time trace replaces its positive-frequency wave amplitude by its complex conjugate. The medium must remain unchanged between recording and re-emission.
Let and , with the chosen source and array normalizations incorporated into the Green function. Let be the array's aperture weight, equal to the indicator of its receiving region for an ideal uniform array. The recorded field isBy wave reciprocity, back-propagation has the same Green function with the source and receiver exchanged. Therefore the physically re-emitted, back-propagated wave amplitude isIf and multiplies by , then , where denotes the transpose without conjugation. Taking a final complex conjugate instead defines the adjoint reconstruction . This distinction prevents an erroneous conjugation in the time reversal operator.
For a localized Gaussian beam or acoustic point source in a homogeneous medium, a finite aperture admits a limited range of angles. The focal width is of order when denotes the aperture diameter. In a random medium, multiple scattering creates paths with a larger angular spread. Each reversed path retraces its route, and the paths interfere constructively at the source. This can produce a larger effective aperture in time reversal and a narrower focus, even though the unreversed field has a complicated speckle pattern.
This comparison concerns a homogeneous reference medium; a deterministic heterogeneous medium can also provide useful multipath propagation. Suitable scale limits or frequency and spatial averaging can make refocusing self-averaging. Such self-averaging is not automatic for every monochromatic source and every random realization. Wave absorption, changing medium parameters, unresolved paths or poor array coverage can spoil refocusing. With complete capture of the propagating modes and a lossless unitary operator , ideal adjoint reconstruction is already exact in either medium. Random scattering can improve finite-aperture wave focusing through angular diversity. See the regime-dependent analysis in Statistical stability in time reversal.