Part IB, 2014
Part IB, 2014
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Paper 1, Section II, F
commentDefine what it means for two norms on a real vector space to be Lipschitz equivalent. Show that if two norms on are Lipschitz equivalent and , then is closed in one norm if and only if is closed in the other norm.
Show that if is finite-dimensional, then any two norms on are Lipschitz equivalent.
Show that is a norm on the space of continuous realvalued functions on . Is the set closed in the norm ?
Determine whether or not the norm is Lipschitz equivalent to the uniform on .
[You may assume the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem for sequences in .]
Paper 2, Section I, F
commentDefine what is meant by a uniformly continuous function on a set .
If and are uniformly continuous functions on , is the (pointwise) product necessarily uniformly continuous on ?
Is a uniformly continuous function on necessarily bounded?
Is uniformly continuous on
Justify your answers.
Paper 2, Section II,
commentLet be subsets of and define . For each of the following statements give a proof or a counterexample (with justification) as appropriate.
(i) If each of is bounded and closed, then is bounded and closed.
(ii) If is bounded and closed and is closed, then is closed.
(iii) If are both closed, then is closed.
(iv) If is open and is closed, then is open.
[The Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem in may be assumed without proof.]
Paper 3, Section I, F
commentLet be an open set and let be a differentiable function on such that for some constant and all , where denotes the operator norm of the linear map . Let be a straight-line segment contained in . Prove that , where denotes the Euclidean norm on .
Prove that if is an open ball and for each , then is constant on .
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentLet , be continuous functions on an open interval . Prove that if the sequence converges to uniformly on then the function is continuous on .
If instead is only known to converge pointwise to and is continuous, must be uniformly convergent? Justify your answer.
Suppose that a function has a continuous derivative on and let
Stating clearly any standard results that you require, show that the functions converge uniformly to on each interval .
Paper 4, Section I, F
commentDefine a contraction mapping and state the contraction mapping theorem.
Let be the space of continuous real-valued functions on endowed with the uniform norm. Show that the map defined by
is not a contraction mapping, but that is.
Paper 4, Section II, F
commentLet be an open set. Define what it means for a function to be differentiable at a point .
Prove that if the partial derivatives and exist on and are continuous at , then is differentiable at .
If is differentiable on must be continuous at Give a proof or counterexample as appropriate.
The function is defined by
Determine all the points at which is differentiable.
Paper 3, Section II, G
commentState the Residue Theorem precisely.
Let be a star-domain, and let be a closed path in . Suppose that is a holomorphic function on , having no zeros on . Let be the number of zeros of inside , counted with multiplicity (i.e. order of zero and winding number). Show that
[The Residue Theorem may be used without proof.]
Now suppose that is another holomorphic function on , also having no zeros on and with on . Explain why, for any , the expression
is well-defined. By considering the behaviour of the function as varies, deduce Rouché's Theorem.
For each , let be the polynomial . Show that, as tends to infinity, the smallest modulus of the roots of also tends to infinity.
[You may assume any results on convergence of power series, provided that they are stated clearly.]
Paper 4, Section I, G
commentLet be an entire function. State Cauchy's Integral Formula, relating the th derivative of at a point with the values of on a circle around .
State Liouville's Theorem, and deduce it from Cauchy's Integral Formula.
Let be an entire function, and suppose that for some we have that for all . Prove that is a polynomial.
Paper 1, Section I, B
commentLet be an analytic/holomorphic function defined on an open set , and let be a point such that . Show that the transformation preserves the angle between smooth curves intersecting at . Find such a transformation that maps the second quadrant of the unit disc (i.e. to the region in the first quadrant of the complex plane where (i.e. the region in the first quadrant outside the unit circle).
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentBy choice of a suitable contour show that for
Hence evaluate
using the substitution .
Paper 2, Section II, B
commentBy considering a rectangular contour, show that for we have
Hence evaluate
Paper 3, Section I, B
commentFind the most general cubic form
which satisfies Laplace's equation, where and are all real. Hence find an analytic function which has such a as its real part.
Paper 4, Section II, B
commentFind the Laplace transforms of for a positive integer and where and is the Heaviside step function.
Consider a semi-infinite string which is initially at rest and is fixed at one end. The string can support wave-like motions, and for it is allowed to fall under gravity. Therefore the deflection from its initial location satisfies
with
where is a constant. Use Laplace transforms to find .
[The convolution theorem for Laplace transforms may be quoted without proof.]
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentThe region is occupied by an ideal earthed conductor and a point charge with mass is held above it at .
(i) What are the boundary conditions satisfied by the electric field on the surface of the conductor?
(ii) Consider now a system without the conductor mentioned above. A point charge with mass is held at , and one of charge is held at . Show that the boundary condition on at is identical to the answer to (i). Explain why this represents the electric field due to the charge at under the influence of the conducting boundary.
(iii) The original point charge in (i) is released with zero initial velocity. Find the time taken for the point charge to reach the plane (ignoring gravity).
[You may assume that the force on the point charge is equal to , where is the position vector of the charge, and is time.]
Paper 2, Section I, A
commentStarting from Maxwell's equations, deduce that
for a moving circuit , where is the flux of through the circuit and where the electromotive force is defined to be
where denotes the velocity of a point on .
[Hint: Consider the closed surface consisting of the surface bounded by , the surface bounded by and the surface stretching from to . Show that the flux of through is .]
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentWhat is the relationship between the electric field and the charge per unit area on the surface of a perfect conductor?
Consider a charge distribution distributed with potential over a finite volume within which there is a set of perfect conductors with charges , each at a potential (normalised such that the potential at infinity is zero). Using Maxwell's equations and the divergence theorem, derive a relationship between the electrostatic energy and a volume integral of an explicit function of the electric field , where
Consider concentric perfectly conducting spherical shells. Shell has radius (where ) and charge for , and charge for . Show that
and determine the constant of proportionality.
Paper 3, Section II, A
comment(i) Consider charges at and at . Write down the electric potential.
(ii) Take . A quadrupole is defined in the limit that such that tends to a constant . Find the quadrupole's potential, showing that it is of the form
where . Determine the constants and .
(iii) The quadrupole is fixed at the origin. At time a particle of charge has the same sign as and mass is at travelling with velocity , where
Neglecting gravity, find the time taken for the particle to reach the quadrupole in terms of , given that the force on the particle is equal to .
Paper 4, Section I, A
commentA continuous wire of resistance is wound around a very long right circular cylinder of radius , and length (long enough so that end effects can be ignored). There are turns of wire per unit length, wound in a spiral of very small pitch. Initially, the magnetic field is .
Both ends of the coil are attached to a battery of electromotance at , which induces a current . Use Ampère's law to derive inside and outside the cylinder when the displacement current may be neglected. Write the self-inductance of the coil in terms of the quantities given above. Using Ohm's law and Faraday's law of induction, find explicitly in terms of and .
Paper 1, Section I, B
commentConstant density viscous fluid with dynamic viscosity flows in a two-dimensional horizontal channel of depth . There is a constant pressure gradient in the horizontal -direction. The upper horizontal boundary at is driven at constant horizontal speed , with the lower boundary being held at rest. Show that the steady fluid velocity in the -direction is
Show that it is possible to have at some point in the flow for sufficiently large pressure gradient. Derive a relationship between and so that there is no net volume flux along the channel. For the flow with no net volume flux, sketch the velocity profile.
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentConsider the purely two-dimensional steady flow of an inviscid incompressible constant density fluid in the absence of body forces. For velocity , the vorticity is . Show that
where is the pressure and is the fluid density. Hence show that, if is a constant in both space and time,
where is a constant and is the streamfunction. Here, is defined by , where .
Fluid in the annular region has constant (in both space and time) vorticity . The streamlines are concentric circles, with the fluid speed zero on and on . Calculate the velocity field, and hence show that
Deduce that the pressure difference between the outer and inner edges of the annular region is
[Hint: Note that in cylindrical polar coordinates , the curl of a vector field is
Paper 2, Section I, B
commentConsider the steady two-dimensional fluid velocity field
where and . Show that the fluid is incompressible. The streamfunction is defined by , where . Show that is given by
Hence show that the streamlines are defined by
for a constant. For each of the three cases below, sketch the streamlines and briefly describe the flow. (i) , (ii) , (iii) .
Paper 3, Section II, B
commentA bubble of gas occupies the spherical region , and an incompressible irrotational liquid of constant density occupies the outer region , such that as the liquid is at rest with constant pressure . Briefly explain why it is appropriate to use a velocity potential to describe the liquid velocity u.
By applying continuity of velocity across the gas-liquid interface, show that the liquid pressure (for ) satisfies
Show that the excess pressure at the bubble surface is
and hence that
The pressure inside the gas bubble satisfies the equation of state
where is a constant, and is the bubble volume. At time the bubble is at rest with radius . If the bubble then expands and comes to rest at , determine the required gas pressure at in terms of .
[You may assume that there is contact between liquid and gas for all time, that all motion is spherically symmetric about the origin , and that there is no body force. You may also assume Bernoulli's integral of the equation of motion to determine the liquid pressure
where is the velocity potential.]
Paper 4, Section II, B
commentConsider a layer of fluid of constant density and equilibrium depth in a rotating frame of reference, rotating at constant angular velocity about the vertical -axis. The equations of motion are
where is the fluid pressure, and are the fluid velocities in the -direction and direction respectively, , and is the constant acceleration due to gravity. You may also assume that the horizontal extent of the layer is sufficiently large so that the layer may be considered to be shallow, such that vertical velocities may be neglected.
By considering mass conservation, show that the depth of the layer satisfies
Now assume that , where . Show that the (linearised) potential vorticity , defined by
and is the unit vector in the vertical -direction, is a constant in time, i.e. .
When everywhere, establish that the surface perturbation satisfies
and show that this equation has wave-like solutions when and are related through a dispersion relation to be determined. Show that, to leading order, the trajectories of fluid particles for these waves are ellipses. Assuming that , and , sketch the fluid velocity when for .
Paper 1, Section I, F
commentDetermine the second fundamental form of a surface in defined by the parametrisation
for , with some fixed . Show that the Gaussian curvature of this surface takes both positive and negative values.
Paper 2, Section II, F
commentLet be the upper half-plane with a hyperbolic metric . Prove that every hyperbolic circle in is also a Euclidean circle. Is the centre of as a hyperbolic circle always the same point as the centre of as a Euclidean circle? Give a proof or counterexample as appropriate.
Let and be two hyperbolic triangles and denote the hyperbolic lengths of their sides by and , respectively. Show that if and , then there is a hyperbolic isometry taking to . Is there always such an isometry if instead the triangles have one angle the same and Justify your answer.
[Standard results on hyperbolic isometries may be assumed, provided they are clearly stated.]
Paper 3, Section I, F
commentLet be an isometry , where is an matrix and . What are the possible values of ?
Let denote the identity matrix. Show that if and , but , then has a fixed point. Must have a fixed point if and , but Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentLet be a decomposition of the two-dimensional sphere into polygonal domains, with every polygon having at least three edges. Let , and denote the numbers of vertices, edges and faces of , respectively. State Euler's formula. Prove that .
Suppose that at least three edges meet at every vertex of . Let be the number of faces of that have exactly edges and let be the number of vertices at which exactly edges meet . Is it possible for to have ? Justify your answer.
By expressing in terms of the , or otherwise, show that has at least four faces that are triangles, quadrilaterals and/or pentagons.
Paper 4, Section II, F
commentDefine an embedded parametrised surface in . What is the Riemannian metric induced by a parametrisation? State, in terms of the Riemannian metric, the equations defining a geodesic curve , assuming that is parametrised by arc-length.
Let be a conical surface
Using an appropriate smooth parametrisation, or otherwise, prove that is locally isometric to the Euclidean plane. Show that any two points on can be joined by a geodesic. Is this geodesic always unique (up to a reparametrisation)? Justify your answer.
[The expression for the Euclidean metric in polar coordinates on may be used without proof.]
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentLet be a finite group and a prime divisor of the order of . Give the definition of a Sylow -subgroup of , and state Sylow's theorems.
Let and be distinct primes. Prove that a group of order is not simple.
Let be a finite group, a normal subgroup of and a Sylow -subgroup of H. Let denote the normaliser of in . Prove that if then there exist and such that .
Paper 2, Section I,
commentList the conjugacy classes of and determine their sizes. Hence prove that is simple.
Paper 2, Section II, 11E
commentProve that every finite integral domain is a field.
Let be a field and an irreducible polynomial in the polynomial ring . Prove that is a field, where denotes the ideal generated by .
Hence construct a field of 4 elements, and write down its multiplication table.
Construct a field of order 9 .
Paper 3, Section I, E
commentState and prove Hilbert's Basis Theorem.
Paper 3, Section II, E
commentLet be a ring, an -module and a subset of . Define what it means to say spans . Define what it means to say is an independent set.
We say is a basis for if spans and is an independent set. Prove that the following two statements are equivalent.
is a basis for .
Every element of is uniquely expressible in the form for some .
We say generates freely if spans and any map , where is an -module, can be extended to an -module homomorphism . Prove that generates freely if and only if is a basis for .
Let be an -module. Are the following statements true or false? Give reasons.
(i) If spans then necessarily contains an independent spanning set for .
(ii) If is an independent subset of then can always be extended to a basis for .
Paper 4, Section I, E
commentLet be the abelian group generated by elements and subject to the relations: and . Express as a product of cyclic groups. Hence determine the number of elements of of order 3 .
Paper 4, Section II, E
comment(a) Consider the four following types of rings: Principal Ideal Domains, Integral Domains, Fields, and Unique Factorisation Domains. Arrange them in the form (where means if a ring is of type then it is of type )
Prove that these implications hold. [You may assume that irreducibles in a Principal Ideal Domain are prime.] Provide examples, with brief justification, to show that these implications cannot be reversed.
(b) Let be a ring with ideals and satisfying . Define to be the set . Prove that is an ideal of . If and are principal, prove that is principal.
Paper 1, Section I, G
commentState and prove the Steinitz Exchange Lemma. Use it to prove that, in a finitedimensional vector space: any two bases have the same size, and every linearly independent set extends to a basis.
Let be the standard basis for . Is a basis for Is a basis for Justify your answers.
Paper 1, Section II, G
commentLet be an -dimensional real vector space, and let be an endomorphism of . We say that acts on a subspace if .
(i) For any , show that acts on the linear span of .
(ii) If spans , show directly (i.e. without using the CayleyHamilton Theorem) that satisfies its own characteristic equation.
(iii) Suppose that acts on a subspace with and . Let be a basis for , and extend to a basis for . Describe the matrix of with respect to this basis.
(iv) Using (i), (ii) and (iii) and induction, give a proof of the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem.
[Simple properties of determinants may be assumed without proof.]
Paper 2, Section I, G
commentState and prove the Rank-Nullity Theorem.
Let be a linear map from to . What are the possible dimensions of the kernel of ? Justify your answer.
Paper 2, Section II, G
commentDefine the determinant of an complex matrix . Explain, with justification, how the determinant of changes when we perform row and column operations on .
Let be complex matrices. Prove the following statements. (i) . (ii) .
Paper 3, Section II, G
commentLet be a nonsingular quadratic form on a finite-dimensional real vector space . Prove that we may write , where the restriction of to is positive definite, the restriction of to is negative definite, and for all and . [No result on diagonalisability may be assumed.]
Show that the dimensions of and are independent of the choice of and . Give an example to show that and are not themselves uniquely defined.
Find such a decomposition when and is the quadratic form
Paper 4, Section I, G
commentLet denote the vector space of all real polynomials of degree at most 2 . Show that
defines an inner product on .
Find an orthonormal basis for .
Paper 4, Section II, G
commentLet be a real vector space. What is the dual of If is a basis for , define the dual basis for , and show that it is indeed a basis for .
[No result about dimensions of dual spaces may be assumed.]
For a subspace of , what is the annihilator of ? If is -dimensional, how does the dimension of the annihilator of relate to the dimension of ?
Let be a linear map between finite-dimensional real vector spaces. What is the dual map ? Explain why the rank of is equal to the rank of . Prove that the kernel of is the annihilator of the image of , and also that the image of is the annihilator of the kernel of .
[Results about the matrices representing a map and its dual may be used without proof, provided they are stated clearly.]
Now let be the vector space of all real polynomials, and define elements of by setting to be the coefficient of in (for each ). Do the form a basis for ?
Paper 1, Section II, 20H
commentConsider a homogeneous Markov chain with state space and transition . For a state , define the terms aperiodic, positive recurrent and ergodic.
Let and suppose that for we have and
where . Show that this Markov chain is irreducible.
Let be the first passage time to 0 . Find and show that state 0 is ergodic.
Find the invariant distribution for this Markov chain. Write down:
(i) the mean recurrence time for state ;
(ii) .
[Results from the course may be quoted without proof, provided they are clearly stated.]
Paper 2, Section II, H
commentLet be a homogeneous Markov chain with state space and transition matrix . For , let
Prove that is the minimal non-negative solution to the equations
Three people and play a series of two-player games. In the first game, two people play and the third person sits out. Any subsequent game is played between the winner of the previous game and the person sitting out the previous game. The overall winner of the series is the first person to win two consecutive games. The players are evenly matched so that in any game each of the two players has probability of winning the game, independently of all other games. For , let be the ordered pair consisting of the winners of games and . Thus the state space is , and, for example, if wins the first game and wins the second.
The first game is between and . Treating and as absorbing states, or otherwise, find the probability of winning the series for each of the three players.
Paper 3, Section I, H
commentLet be a homogeneous Markov chain with state space . For in let denote the -step transition probability .
(i) Express the -step transition probability in terms of the -step and -step transition probabilities.
(ii) Write if there exists such that , and if and . Prove that if and then either both and are recurrent or both and are transient. [You may assume that a state is recurrent if and only if , and otherwise is transient.]
(iii) A Markov chain has state space and transition matrix
For each state , determine whether is recurrent or transient. [Results from the course may be quoted without proof, provided they are clearly stated.]
Paper 4, Section I, H
commentLet be a homogeneous Markov chain with state space and transition .
(a) Let Show that is a Markov chain and give its transition matrix. If , find in terms of the and the .
[Results from the course may be quoted without proof, provided they are clearly stated.]
(b) Suppose that and . Let , In terms of the , find
(i) and
(ii) .
What can you conclude about whether or not is a Markov chain?
Paper 1, Section II, D
comment(a) Legendre's differential equation may be written
Show that for non-negative integer , this equation has a solution that is a polynomial of degree . Find and explicitly.
(b) Laplace's equation in spherical coordinates for an axisymmetric function (i.e. no dependence) is given by
Use separation of variables to find the general solution for .
Find the solution that satisfies the boundary conditions
where and are constants.
Paper 2, Section I, D
comment(i) Calculate the Fourier series for the periodic extension on of the function
defined on the interval .
(ii) Explain why the Fourier series for the periodic extension of can be obtained by term-by-term differentiation of the series for .
(iii) Let be the Fourier series for the periodic extension of . Determine the value of and explain briefly how it is related to the values of .
Paper 2, Section II, 16D
commentThe Fourier transform of a function is defined as
A Green's function for the diffusion equation in one spatial dimension satisfies
(a) By applying a Fourier transform, show that the Fourier transform of this Green's function and the Green's function are
where is the Heaviside function. [Hint: The Fourier transform of a Gaussian , is given by
(b) The analogous result for the Green's function for the diffusion equation in two spatial dimensions is
Use this Green's function to construct a solution for to the diffusion equation
with the initial condition .
Now set
Find the solution for in terms of the exponential integral defined by
Use the approximation , valid for , to simplify this solution . Here is Euler's constant.
Paper 3, Section I, D
commentUsing the method of characteristics, solve the differential equation
where and on .
Paper 3, Section II, 15D
commentLet be a linear second-order differential operator on the interval . Consider the problem
with bounded in .
(i) How is a Green's function for this problem defined?
(ii) How is a solution for this problem constructed from the Green's function?
(iii) Describe the continuity and jump conditions used in the construction of the Green's function.
(iv) Use the continuity and jump conditions to construct the Green's function for the differential equation
on the interval with the boundary conditions and an arbitrary bounded function . Use the Green's function to construct a solution for the particular case .
Paper 4, Section I, D
commentConsider the ordinary differential equation
where is a positive constant and denotes the Dirac delta function. Physically relevant solutions for are bounded over the entire range .
(i) Find piecewise bounded solutions to this differential equations in the ranges and , respectively. [Hint: The equation for a constant may be solved using the Ansatz .]
(ii) Derive a matching condition at by integrating ( ) over the interval with and use this condition together with the requirement that be continuous at to determine the solution over the entire range .
Paper 4, Section II, D
commentLet be a complex-valued function defined on the interval and periodically extended to .
(i) Express as a complex Fourier series with coefficients . How are the coefficients obtained from ?
(ii) State Parseval's theorem for complex Fourier series.
(iii) Consider the function on the interval and periodically extended to for a complex but non-integer constant . Calculate the complex Fourier series of .
(iv) Prove the formula
(v) Now consider the case where is a real, non-integer constant. Use Parseval's theorem to obtain a formula for
What value do you obtain for this series for
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentDefine what it means for a topological space to be compact. Define what it means for a topological space to be Hausdorff.
Prove that a compact subspace of a Hausdorff space is closed. Hence prove that if and are compact subspaces of a Hausdorff space then is compact.
A subset of is open in the cocountable topology if is empty or its complement in is countable. Is Hausdorff in the cocountable topology? Which subsets of are compact in the cocountable topology?
Paper 2, Section , E
commentLet and be topological spaces. What does it mean to say that a function is continuous?
Are the following statements true or false? Give proofs or counterexamples.
(i) Every continuous function is an open map, i.e. if is open in then is open in .
(ii) If is continuous and bijective then is a homeomorphism.
(iii) If is continuous, open and bijective then is a homeomorphism.
Paper 3, Section I, E
commentSuppose is a metric space. Do the following necessarily define a metric on ? Give proofs or counterexamples.
(i) for some constant , for all .
(ii) for all .
(iii) for all .
Paper 4, Section II, E
commentExplain what it means for a metric space to be complete.
Let be a metric space. We say the subsets of , with , form a descending sequence in if .
Prove that the metric space is complete if and only if any descending sequence of non-empty closed subsets of , such that the diameters of the subsets converge to zero, has an intersection that is non-empty.
[Recall that the diameter of a set is the supremum of the set :
Give examples of
(i) a metric space , and a descending sequence of non-empty closed subsets of , with converging to 0 but .
(ii) a descending sequence of non-empty sets in with converging to 0 but .
(iii) a descending sequence of non-empty closed sets in with .
Paper 1, Section I,
comment(i) A general multistep method for the numerical approximation to the scalar differential equation is given by
where . Show that this method is of order if and only if
where
(ii) A particular three-step implicit method is given by
where the are chosen to make the method third order. [The need not be found.] For what values of is the method convergent?
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentDefine a Householder transformation and show that it is an orthogonal matrix. Briefly explain how these transformations can be used for QR factorisation of an matrix.
Using Householder transformations, find a QR factorisation of
Using this factorisation, find the value of for which
has a unique solution .
Paper 2, Section II, C
commentA linear functional acting on is approximated using a linear scheme . The approximation is exact when is a polynomial of degree . The error is given by . Starting from the Taylor formula for with an integral remainder term, show that the error can be written in the form
subject to a condition on that you should specify. Give an expression for .
Find and such that the approximation scheme
is exact for all that are polynomials of degree 2 . Assuming , apply the Peano kernel theorem to the error. Find and sketch for .
Find the minimum values for the constants and for which
and show explicitly that both error bounds hold for .
Paper 3, Section II, C
commentA Runge-Kutta scheme is given by
for the solution of an autonomous differential equation , where is a real parameter. What is the order of the scheme? Identify all values of for which the scheme is A-stable. Determine the linear stability domain for this range.
Paper 4, Section I, C
commentConsider the quadrature given by
for , disjoint and . Show that it is not possible to make this quadrature exact for all polynomials of order .
For the case that and , by considering orthogonal polynomials find suitable and that make the quadrature exact on cubic polynomials.
[Hint: and ]
Paper 1, Section I, 8H
commentState and prove the Lagrangian sufficiency theorem.
Use the Lagrangian sufficiency theorem to find the minimum of subject to (where and are real).
Paper 2, Section I, H
commentExplain what is meant by a two-player zero-sum game with pay-off matrix , and state the optimal strategies for each player.
Find these optimal strategies when
Paper 3, Section II, H
commentUse the two-phase simplex method to maximise subject to the constraints
Derive the dual of this linear programming problem and find the optimal solution of the dual.
Paper 4, Section II, H
commentConsider a network with a single source and a single sink, where all the edge capacities are finite. Write down the maximum flow problem, and state the max-flow min-cut theorem.
Describe the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm. If all edge capacities are integers, explain why, starting from a suitable initial flow, the algorithm is guaranteed to end after a finite number of iterations.
The graph in the diagram below represents a one-way road network taking traffic from point to point via five roundabouts . The capacity of each road is shown on the diagram in terms of vehicles per minute. Assuming that all roundabouts can deal with arbitrary amounts of flow of traffic, find the maximum flow of traffic (in vehicles per minute) through this network of roads. Show that this flow is indeed optimal.
After a heavy storm, roundabout is flooded and only able to deal with at most 20 vehicles per minute. Find a suitable new network for the situation after the storm. Apply the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm to the new network, starting with the zero flow and explaining each step, to determine the maximum flow and the associated flows on each road.
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentConsider a particle confined in a one-dimensional infinite potential well: for and for . The normalised stationary states are
where .
(i) Determine the and the stationary states' energies .
(ii) A state is prepared within this potential well: for , but for or . Find an explicit expansion of in terms of
(iii) If the energy of the state is then immediately measured, show that the probability that it is greater than is
where the are integers which you should find.
(iv) By considering the normalisation condition for in terms of the expansion in , show that
where and are integers which you should find.
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentFor an electron of mass in a hydrogen atom, the time-independent Schrödinger equation may be written as
Consider normalised energy eigenstates of the form
where are orbital angular momentum eigenstates:
where and . The functions are normalised with
(i) Write down the resulting equation satisfied by , for fixed . Show that it has solutions of the form
where is a constant which you should determine. Show that
where is an integer which you should find (in terms of ). Also, show that
where and are integers that you should find in terms of .
(ii) Given the radius of the proton , show that the probability of the electron being found within the proton is approximately
finding the integer in terms of .
[You may assume that .]
Paper 3, Section I, A
commentThe wavefunction of a normalised Gaussian wavepacket for a particle of mass in one dimension with potential is given by
where . Given that is a solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, find the complex-valued function and the real constant .
[You may assume that ]
Paper 3, Section II, A
commentThe Hamiltonian of a two-dimensional isotropic harmonic oscillator is given by
where and denote position operators and and the corresponding momentum operators.
State without proof the commutation relations between the operators . From these commutation relations, write and in terms of a single operator. Now consider the observable
Ehrenfest's theorem states that, for some observable with expectation value ,
Use it to show that the expectation value of is constant with time.
Given two states
where and are constants, find a normalised linear combination of and that is an eigenstate of , and the corresponding eigenvalue. [You may assume that correctly normalises both and .] If a quantum state is prepared in the linear combination you have found at time , what is the expectation value of at a later time
Paper 4, Section I, A
commentFor some quantum mechanical observable , prove that its uncertainty satisfies
A quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator has Hamiltonian
where . Show that (in a stationary state of energy )
Write down the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. Then, use it to show that
for our stationary state.
Paper 1, Section I,
commentConsider an estimator of an unknown parameter , and assume that for all . Define the bias and mean squared error of .
Show that the mean squared error of is the sum of its variance and the square of its bias.
Suppose that are independent identically distributed random variables with mean and variance , and consider estimators of of the form where .
(i) Find the value of that gives an unbiased estimator, and show that the mean squared error of this unbiased estimator is .
(ii) Find the range of values of for which the mean squared error of is smaller .
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentSuppose that , and are independent identically distributed Poisson random variables with expectation , so that
and consider testing against , where is a known value greater than 1. Show that the test with critical region is a likelihood ratio test of against . What is the size of this test? Write down an expression for its power.
A scientist counts the number of bird territories in randomly selected sections of a large park. Let be the number of bird territories in the th section, and suppose that are independent Poisson random variables with expectations respectively. Let be the area of the th section. Suppose that , and . Derive the generalised likelihood ratio for testing
What should the scientist conclude about the number of bird territories if is
[Hint: Let be where has a Poisson distribution with expectation . Then
Paper 2, Section I, H
commentThere are 100 patients taking part in a trial of a new surgical procedure for a particular medical condition. Of these, 50 patients are randomly selected to receive the new procedure and the remaining 50 receive the old procedure. Six months later, a doctor assesses whether or not each patient has fully recovered. The results are shown below:
\begin{tabular}{l|c|c} & Fully recovered & Not fully recovered \ \hline Old procedure & 25 & 25 \ \hline New procedure & 31 & 19 \end{tabular}
The doctor is interested in whether there is a difference in full recovery rates for patients receiving the two procedures. Carry out an appropriate significance level test, stating your hypotheses carefully. [You do not need to derive the test.] What conclusion should be reported to the doctor?
[Hint: Let denote the upper percentage point of a distribution. Then
Paper 3, Section II, H
commentSuppose that are independent identically distributed random variables with
where is known and is an unknown parameter. Find the maximum likelihood estimator of .
Statistician 1 has prior density for given by , where . Find the posterior distribution for after observing data . Write down the posterior mean , and show that
where depends only on the prior distribution and is a constant in that is to be specified.
Statistician 2 has prior density for given by . Briefly describe the prior beliefs that the two statisticians hold about . Find the posterior mean and show that .
Suppose that increases (but and the remain unchanged). How do the prior beliefs of the two statisticians change? How does vary? Explain briefly what happens to and .
[Hint: The Beta distribution has density
with expectation and variance . Here, , is the Gamma function.]
Paper 4, Section II, H
commentConsider a linear model
where is a known matrix, is a vector of unknown parameters and is an vector of independent random variables with unknown. Assume that has full rank . Find the least squares estimator of and derive its distribution. Define the residual sum of squares and write down an unbiased estimator of .
Suppose that and , for , where and are known with , and are independent random variables. Assume that at least two of the are distinct and at least two of the are distinct. Show that (where denotes transpose) may be written as in ( ) and identify and . Find in terms of the , and . Find the distribution of and derive a confidence interval for .
[Hint: You may assume that has a distribution, and that and the residual sum of squares are independent. Properties of distributions may be used without proof.]
Paper 1, Section I, C
commentDefine the Legendre transform of a function where .
Show that for ,
Show that for where is a real, symmetric, invertible matrix with positive eigenvalues,
Paper 2, Section II, C
commentWrite down the Euler-Lagrange equation for the integral
An ant is walking on the surface of a sphere, which is parameterised by angle from top of sphere) and ) (azimuthal angle). The sphere is sticky towards the top and the bottom and so the ant's speed is proportional to . Show that the ant's fastest route between two points will be of the form
for some constants and . need not be determined.]
Paper 3, Section I,
commentLet . Using Lagrange multipliers, find the location(s) and value of the maximum of on the intersection of the unit sphere and the ellipsoid given by .
Paper 4, Section II, C
commentConsider the integral
Show that if satisfies the Euler-Lagrange equation, then
An axisymmetric soap film is formed between two circular wires at . The wires both have radius . Show that the shape that minimises the surface area takes the form
Show that there exist two possible that satisfy the boundary conditions for sufficiently large.
Show that for these solutions the second variation is given by
where is an axisymmetric perturbation with .