Part IB, 2019
Part IB, 2019
Jump to course
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentLet be an open subset. State what it means for a function to be differentiable at a point , and define its derivative .
State and prove the chain rule for the derivative of , where is a differentiable function.
Let be the vector space of real-valued matrices, and the open subset consisting of all invertible ones. Let be given by .
(a) Show that is differentiable at the identity matrix, and calculate its derivative.
(b) For , let be given by and . Show that on . Hence or otherwise, show that is differentiable at any point of , and calculate for .
Paper 2, Section I, E
commentConsider the map given by
where denotes the unique real cube root of .
(a) At what points is continuously differentiable? Calculate its derivative there.
(b) Show that has a local differentiable inverse near any with .
You should justify your answers, stating accurately any results that you require.
Paper 2, Section II, 12E
comment(a) (i) Define what it means for two norms on a vector space to be Lipschitz equivalent.
(ii) Show that any two norms on a finite-dimensional vector space are Lipschitz equivalent.
(iii) Show that if two norms on a vector space are Lipschitz equivalent then the following holds: for any sequence in is Cauchy with respect to if and only if it is Cauchy with respect to .
(b) Let be the vector space of real sequences such that . Let
and for , let
You may assume that and are well-defined norms on .
(i) Show that is not Lipschitz equivalent to for any .
(ii) Are there any with such that and are Lipschitz equivalent? Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section I,
comment(a) Let . What does it mean for a function to be uniformly continuous?
(b) Which of the following functions are uniformly continuous? Briefly justify your answers.
(i) on .
(ii) on .
(iii) on .
Paper 3, Section II, E
comment(a) Carefully state the Picard-Lindelöf theorem on solutions to ordinary differential equations.
(b) Let be the set of continuous functions from a closed interval to , and let be a norm on .
(i) Let . Show that for any the norm
is Lipschitz equivalent to the usual sup norm on .
(ii) Assume that is continuous and Lipschitz in the second variable, i.e. there exists such that
for all and all . Define by
for .
Show that there is a choice of such that is a contraction on . Deduce that for any , the differential equation
has a unique solution on with .
Paper 4, Section I, E
commentLet . What does it mean to say that a sequence of real-valued functions on is uniformly convergent?
(i) If a sequence of real-valued functions on converges uniformly to , and each is continuous, must also be continuous?
(ii) Let . Does the sequence converge uniformly on ?
(iii) If a sequence of real-valued functions on converges uniformly to , and each is differentiable, must also be differentiable?
Give a proof or counterexample in each case.
Paper 4, Section II, E
comment(a) (i) Show that a compact metric space must be complete.
(ii) If a metric space is complete and bounded, must it be compact? Give a proof or counterexample.
(b) A metric space is said to be totally bounded if for all , there exists and such that
(i) Show that a compact metric space is totally bounded.
(ii) Show that a complete, totally bounded metric space is compact.
[Hint: If is Cauchy, then there is a subsequence such that
(iii) Consider the space of continuous functions , with the metric
Is this space compact? Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentDefine the winding number of a closed path around a point which does not lie on the image of . [You do not need to justify its existence.]
If is a meromorphic function, define the order of a zero of and of a pole of . State the Argument Principle, and explain how it can be deduced from the Residue Theorem.
How many roots of the polynomial
lie in the right-hand half plane?
Paper 4, Section I,
commentState the Cauchy Integral Formula for a disc. If is a holomorphic function such that for all , show using the Cauchy Integral Formula that is constant.
Paper 1, Section I, F
commentWhat is the Laurent series for a function defined in an annulus ? Find the Laurent series for on the annuli
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentState and prove Jordan's lemma.
What is the residue of a function at an isolated singularity ? If with a positive integer, analytic, and , derive a formula for the residue of at in terms of derivatives of .
Evaluate
Paper 2, Section II, D
commentLet and be smooth curves in the complex plane, intersecting at some point . Show that if the map is complex differentiable, then it preserves the angle between and at , provided . Give an example that illustrates why the condition is important.
Show that is a one-to-one conformal map on each of the two regions and , and find the image of each region.
Hence construct a one-to-one conformal map from the unit disc to the complex plane with the intervals and removed.
Paper 3, Section I, D
commentBy considering the transformation , find a solution to Laplace's equation inside the unit disc , subject to the boundary conditions
where is constant. Give your answer in terms of .
Paper 4, Section II, D
comment(a) Using the Bromwich contour integral, find the inverse Laplace transform of .
The temperature of mercury in a spherical thermometer bulb obeys the radial heat equation
with unit diffusion constant. At the mercury is at a uniform temperature equal to that of the surrounding air. For the surrounding air temperature lowers such that at the edge of the thermometer bulb
where is a constant.
(b) Find an explicit expression for .
(c) Show that the temperature of the mercury at the centre of the thermometer bulb at late times is
[You may assume that the late time behaviour of is determined by the singular part of at
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentLet be the electric field and the scalar potential due to a static charge density , with all quantities vanishing as becomes large. The electrostatic energy of the configuration is given by
with the integrals taken over all space. Verify that these integral expressions agree.
Suppose that a total charge is distributed uniformly in the region and that otherwise. Use the integral form of Gauss's Law to determine at all points in space and, without further calculation, sketch graphs to indicate how and depend on position.
Consider the limit with fixed. Comment on the continuity of and . Verify directly from each of the integrals in that in this limit.
Now consider a small change in the total charge . Show that the first-order change in the energy is and interpret this result.
Paper 2, Section I, A
commentWrite down the solution for the scalar potential that satisfies
with as . You may assume that the charge distribution vanishes for , for some constant . In an expansion of for , show that the terms of order and can be expressed in terms of the total charge and the electric dipole moment , which you should define.
Write down the analogous solution for the vector potential that satisfies
with as . You may assume that the current vanishes for and that it obeys everywhere. In an expansion of for , show that the term of order vanishes.
Hint:
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentConsider a conductor in the shape of a closed curve moving in the presence of a magnetic field B. State Faraday's Law of Induction, defining any quantities that you introduce.
Suppose is a square horizontal loop that is allowed to move only vertically. The location of the loop is specified by a coordinate , measured vertically upwards, and the edges of the loop are defined by and . If the magnetic field is
where is a constant, find the induced current , given that the total resistance of the loop is .
Calculate the resulting electromagnetic force on the edge of the loop , and show that this force acts at an angle to the vertical. Find the total electromagnetic force on the loop and comment on its direction.
Now suppose that the loop has mass and that gravity is the only other force acting on it. Show that it is possible for the loop to fall with a constant downward velocity .
Paper 3, Section II, A
commentThe electric and magnetic fields in an inertial frame are related to the fields in a frame by a Lorentz transformation. Given that moves in the -direction with speed relative to , and that
write down equations relating the remaining field components and define . Use your answers to show directly that .
Give an expression for an additional, independent, Lorentz-invariant function of the fields, and check that it is invariant for the special case when and are the only non-zero components in the frame .
Now suppose in addition that with a non-zero constant. Show that the angle between the electric and magnetic fields in is given by
where . By considering the behaviour of as approaches its limiting values, show that the relative velocity of the frames can be chosen so that the angle takes any value in one of the ranges or , depending on the sign of .
Paper 4, Section I, A
commentWrite down Maxwell's Equations for electric and magnetic fields and in the absence of charges and currents. Show that there are solutions of the form
if and satisfy a constraint and if and are then chosen appropriately.
Find the solution with , where is real, and . Compute the Poynting vector and state its physical significance.
Paper 1, Section I, C
commentA viscous fluid flows steadily down a plane that is inclined at an angle to the horizontal. The fluid layer is of uniform thickness and has a free upper surface. Determine the velocity profile in the direction perpendicular to the plane and also the volume flux (per unit width), in terms of the gravitational acceleration , the angle , the kinematic viscosity and the thickness of the fluid layer.
Show that the volume flux is reduced if the free upper surface is replaced by a stationary plane boundary, and give a physical explanation for this.
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentExplain why the irrotational flow of an incompressible fluid can be expressed in terms of a velocity potential that satisfies Laplace's equation.
The axis of a stationary cylinder of radius coincides with the -axis of a Cartesian coordinate system with unit vectors . A fluid of density flows steadily past the cylinder such that the velocity field is independent of and has no component in the -direction. The flow is irrotational but there is a constant non-zero circulation
around every closed curve that encloses the cylinder once in a positive sense. Far from the cylinder, the velocity field tends towards the uniform flow , where is a constant.
State the boundary conditions on the velocity potential, in terms of polar coordinates in the -plane. Explain why the velocity potential is not required to be a single-valued function of position. Hence obtain the appropriate solution , in terms of and .
Neglecting gravity, show that the net force on the cylinder, per unit length in the -direction, is
Determine the number and location of stagnation points in the flow as a function of the dimensionless parameter
Paper 2, Section I, C
commentConsider the steady flow
where are Cartesian coordinates. Show that and determine the streamfunction. Calculate the vorticity and verify that the vorticity equation is satisfied in the absence of viscosity. Sketch the streamlines in the region .
Paper 3, Section II, C
commentA cubic box of side , enclosing the region , contains equal volumes of two incompressible fluids that remain distinct. The system is initially at rest, with the fluid of density occupying the region and the fluid of density occupying the region , and with gravity . The interface between the fluids is then slightly perturbed. Derive the linearized equations and boundary conditions governing small disturbances to the initial state.
In the case , show that the angular frequencies of the normal modes are given by
and express the allowable values of the wavenumber in terms of . Identify the lowestfrequency non-trivial mode . Comment on the limit . What physical behaviour is expected in the case ?
Paper 4, Section II, C
commentThe linear shallow-water equations governing the motion of a fluid layer in the neighbourhood of a point on the Earth's surface in the northern hemisphere are
where and are the horizontal velocity components and is the perturbation of the height of the free surface.
(a) Explain the meaning of the three positive constants and appearing in the equations above and outline the assumptions made in deriving these equations.
(b) Show that , the -component of vorticity, satisfies
and deduce that the potential vorticity
satisfies
(c) Consider a steady geostrophic flow that is uniform in the latitudinal direction. Show that
Given that the potential vorticity has the piecewise constant profile
where and are constants, and that as , solve for and in terms of the Rossby radius . Sketch the functions and in the case .
Paper 1, Section I, E
commentDescribe the Poincaré disc model for the hyperbolic plane by giving the appropriate Riemannian metric.
Calculate the distance between two points . You should carefully state any results about isometries of that you use.
Paper 2, Section II, E
commentDefine a smooth embedded surface in . Sketch the surface given by
and find a smooth parametrisation for it. Use this to calculate the Gaussian curvature of at every point.
Hence or otherwise, determine which points of the embedded surface
have Gaussian curvature zero. [Hint: consider a transformation of .]
[You should carefully state any result that you use.]
Paper 3, Section I, E
commentState a formula for the area of a spherical triangle with angles .
Let . What is the area of a convex spherical -gon with interior angles ? Justify your answer.
Find the range of possible values for the interior angle of a regular convex spherical
Paper 3, Section II, E
commentDefine a geodesic triangulation of an abstract closed smooth surface. Define the Euler number of a triangulation, and state the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for closed smooth surfaces. Given a vertex in a triangulation, its valency is defined to be the number of edges incident at that vertex.
(a) Given a triangulation of the torus, show that the average valency of a vertex of the triangulation is 6 .
(b) Consider a triangulation of the sphere.
(i) Show that the average valency of a vertex is strictly less than 6 .
(ii) A triangulation can be subdivided by replacing one triangle with three sub-triangles, each one with vertices two of the original ones, and a fixed interior point of .
Using this, or otherwise, show that there exist triangulations of the sphere with average vertex valency arbitrarily close to 6 .
(c) Suppose is a closed abstract smooth surface of everywhere negative curvature. Show that the average vertex valency of a triangulation of is bounded above and below.
Paper 4, Section II, E
commentLet be the upper-half plane with hyperbolic metric . Define the group , and show that it acts by isometries on . [If you use a generation statement you must carefully state it.]
(a) Prove that acts transitively on the collection of pairs , where is a hyperbolic line in and .
(b) Let be the imaginary half-axis. Find the isometries of which fix pointwise. Hence or otherwise find all isometries of .
(c) Describe without proof the collection of all hyperbolic lines which meet with (signed) angle . Explain why there exists a hyperbolic triangle with angles and whenever .
(d) Is this triangle unique up to isometry? Justify your answer. [You may use without proof the fact that Möbius maps preserve angles.]
Paper 1, Section II, G
comment(a) Let be a group of order , for a prime. Prove that is not simple.
(b) State Sylow's theorems.
(c) Let be a group of order , where are distinct odd primes. Prove that is not simple.
Paper 2, Section I, G
commentLet be an integral domain. A module over is torsion-free if, for any and only if or .
Let be a module over . Prove that there is a quotient
with torsion-free and with the following property: whenever is a torsion-free module and is a homomorphism of modules, there is a homomorphism such that .
Paper 2, Section II, G
comment(a) Let be a field and let be an irreducible polynomial of degree over . Prove that there exists a field containing as a subfield such that
where and . State carefully any results that you use.
(b) Let be a field and let be a monic polynomial of degree over , which is not necessarily irreducible. Prove that there exists a field containing as a subfield such that
where .
(c) Let for a prime, and let for an integer. For as in part (b), let be the set of roots of in . Prove that is a field.
Paper 3, Section I,
commentProve that the ideal in is not principal.
Paper 3, Section II, G
commentLet .
(a) Prove that is a Euclidean domain.
(b) Deduce that is a unique factorisation domain, stating carefully any results from the course that you use.
(c) By working in , show that whenever satisfy
then is not congruent to 2 modulo 3 .
Paper 4, Section I, G
commentLet be a group and a subgroup.
(a) Define the normaliser .
(b) Suppose that and is a Sylow -subgroup of . Using Sylow's second theorem, prove that .
Paper 4, Section II, G
comment(a) Define the Smith Normal Form of a matrix. When is it guaranteed to exist?
(b) Deduce the classification of finitely generated abelian groups.
(c) How many conjugacy classes of matrices are there in with minimal polynomial
Paper 1, Section I, F
commentDefine a basis of a vector space .
If has a finite basis , show using only the definition that any other basis has the same cardinality as .
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentWhat is the adjugate adj of an matrix ? How is it related to
(a) Define matrices by
and scalars by
Find a recursion for the matrices in terms of and the 's.
(b) By considering the partial derivatives of the multivariable polynomial
show that
(c) Hence show that the 's may be expressed in terms of .
Paper 2, Section I, F
commentIf and are finite-dimensional subspaces of a vector space , prove that
Let
Show that is 3 -dimensional and find a linear map such that
Paper 2, Section II, F
commentLet and be matrices over .
(a) Assuming that is invertible, show that and have the same characteristic polynomial.
(b) By considering the matrices , show that and have the same characteristic polynomial even when is singular.
(c) Give an example to show that the minimal polynomials and of and may be different.
(d) Show that and differ at most by a factor of . Stating carefully any results which you use, deduce that if is diagonalisable then so is .
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentIf is a quadratic form on a finite-dimensional real vector space , what is the associated symmetric bilinear form ? Prove that there is a basis for with respect to which the matrix for is diagonal. What is the signature of ?
If is a subspace such that for all and all , show that defines a quadratic form on the quotient vector space . Show that the signature of is the same as that of .
If are vectors such that and , show that there is a direct sum decomposition such that the signature of is the same as that of .
Paper 4, Section I, F
commentWhat is an eigenvalue of a matrix ? What is the eigenspace corresponding to an eigenvalue of ?
Consider the matrix
for a non-zero vector. Show that has rank 1 . Find the eigenvalues of and describe the corresponding eigenspaces. Is diagonalisable?
Paper 4, Section II, F
commentIf is a finite-dimensional real vector space with inner product , prove that the linear map given by is an isomorphism. [You do not need to show that it is linear.]
If and are inner product spaces and is a linear map, what is meant by the adjoint of ? If is an orthonormal basis for is an orthonormal basis for , and is the matrix representing in these bases, derive a formula for the matrix representing in these bases.
Prove that .
If then the linear equation has no solution, but we may instead search for a minimising , known as a least-squares solution. Show that is such a least-squares solution if and only if it satisfies . Hence find a least-squares solution to the linear equation
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentLet be a transition matrix for a Markov chain on a state space with elements with . Assume that the Markov chain is aperiodic and irreducible and let be its unique invariant distribution. Assume that .
(a) Let . Show that .
(b) Let . Compute in terms of an explicit function of .
(c) Suppose that a cop and a robber start from a common state chosen from . The robber then takes one step according to and stops. The cop then moves according to independently of the robber until the cop catches the robber (i.e., the cop visits the state occupied by the robber). Compute the expected amount of time for the cop to catch the robber.
Paper 2, Section II, H
commentFix and let be the graph consisting of a copy of joining vertices and , a copy of joining vertices and , and a copy of joining vertices and . Let be the vertex adjacent to on the segment from to . Shown below is an illustration of in the case . The vertices are solid squares and edges are indicated by straight lines.
Let be a simple random walk on . In other words, in each time step, moves to one of its neighbours with equal probability. Assume that .
(a) Compute the expected amount of time for to hit .
(b) Compute the expected amount of time for to hit . [Hint: first show that the expected amount of time for to go from to satisfies where is the expected return time of to when starting from .]
(c) Compute the expected amount of time for to hit . [Hint: for each , let be the vertex which is places to the right of on the segment from to . Derive an equation for the expected amount of time for to go from to .]
Justify all of your answers.
Paper 3, Section I, H
commentSuppose that is a Markov chain with state space .
(a) Give the definition of a communicating class.
(b) Give the definition of the period of a state .
(c) Show that if two states communicate then they have the same period.
Paper 4, Section I, H
commentFor a Markov chain on a state space with , we let for be the probability that when .
(a) Let be a Markov chain. Prove that if is recurrent at a state , then . [You may use without proof that the number of returns of a Markov chain to a state when starting from has the geometric distribution.]
(b) Let and be independent simple symmetric random walks on starting from the origin 0 . Let . Prove that and deduce that . [You may use without proof that for all and , and that is recurrent at 0.]
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentThe Bessel functions can be defined by the expansion
By using Cartesian coordinates , or otherwise, show that
Deduce that satisfies Bessel's equation
By expanding the left-hand side of up to cubic order in , derive the series expansions of and up to this order.
Paper 2, Section I, B
commentLet be spherical polar coordinates, and let denote the th Legendre polynomial. Write down the most general solution for of Laplace's equation that takes the form .
Solve Laplace's equation in the spherical shell subject to the boundary conditions
[The first three Legendre polynomials are
Paper 2, Section II, D
commentFor , the degree polynomial satisfies the differential equation
where is a real, positive parameter. Show that, when ,
for a weight function and values that you should determine.
Suppose that the roots of that lie inside the domain are , with . By considering the integral
show that in fact all roots of lie in .
Paper 3, Section I, D
commentDefine the discrete Fourier transform of a sequence of complex numbers.
Compute the discrete Fourier transform of the sequence
Paper 3, Section II, D
commentBy differentiating the expression , where is a constant and is the Heaviside step function, show that
where is the Dirac -function.
Hence, by taking a Fourier transform with respect to the spatial variables only, derive the retarded Green's function for the wave operator in three spatial dimensions.
[You may use that
without proof.]
Thus show that the solution to the homogeneous wave equation , subject to the initial conditions and , may be expressed as
where is the average value of on a sphere of radius centred on . Interpret this result.
Paper 4, Section I, D
commentLet
By considering the integral , where is a smooth, bounded function that vanishes sufficiently rapidly as , identify in terms of a generalized function.
Paper 4, Section II, B
comment(a) Show that the operator
where and are real functions, is self-adjoint (for suitable boundary conditions which you need not state) if and only if
(b) Consider the eigenvalue problem
on the interval with boundary conditions
Assuming that is everywhere negative, show that all eigenvalues are positive.
(c) Assume now that and that the eigenvalue problem (*) is on the interval with . Show that is an eigenvalue provided that
and show graphically that this condition has just one solution in the range .
[You may assume that all eigenfunctions are either symmetric or antisymmetric about
Paper 1, Section II, G
commentConsider the set of sequences of integers
Define
for two sequences . Let
where, as usual, we adopt the convention that .
(a) Prove that defines a metric on .
(b) What does it mean for a metric space to be complete? Prove that is complete.
(c) Is path connected? Justify your answer.
Paper 2, Section I, G
comment(a) Let be a continuous surjection of topological spaces. Prove that, if is connected, then is also connected.
(b) Let be a continuous map. Deduce from part (a) that, for every between and , there is such that . [You may not assume the Intermediate Value Theorem, but you may use the fact that suprema exist in .]
Paper 3, Section I,
commentLet be a metric space.
(a) What does it mean for to be compact? What does it mean for to be sequentially compact?
(b) Prove that if is compact then is sequentially compact.
Paper 4, Section II, G
comment(a) Define the subspace, quotient and product topologies.
(b) Let be a compact topological space and a Hausdorff topological space. Prove that a continuous bijection is a homeomorphism.
(c) Let , equipped with the product topology. Let be the smallest equivalence relation on such that and , for all . Let
equipped with the subspace topology from . Prove that and are homeomorphic.
[You may assume without proof that is compact.]
Paper 1, Section I, C
commentLet be the smallest interval that contains the distinct real numbers , and let be a continuous function on that interval.
Define the divided difference of degree .
Prove that the polynomial of degree that interpolates the function at the points is equal to the Newton polynomial
Prove the recursive formula
for
Paper 1, Section II, C
comment(a) An -step method for solving the ordinary differential equation
is given by
where and are constant coefficients, with , and is the time-step. Prove that the method is of order if and only if
as , where
(b) Show that the Adams-Moulton method
is of third order and convergent.
[You may assume the Dahlquist equivalence theorem if you state it clearly.]
Paper 2, Section II, C
commentDefine the linear least squares problem for the equation
where is a given matrix with is a given vector and is an unknown vector.
Explain how the linear least squares problem can be solved by obtaining a factorization of the matrix , where is an orthogonal matrix and is an uppertriangular matrix in standard form.
Use the Gram-Schmidt method to obtain a factorization of the matrix
and use it to solve the linear least squares problem in the case
Paper 3, Section II, C
comment(a) Let be a positive weight function on the interval . Show that
defines an inner product on .
(b) Consider the sequence of polynomials defined by the three-term recurrence relation
where
and the coefficients (for and (for are given by
Prove that this defines a sequence of monic orthogonal polynomials on .
(c) The Hermite polynomials are orthogonal on the interval with weight function . Given that
deduce that the Hermite polynomials satisfy a relation of the form with and . Show that .
(d) State, without proof, how the properties of the Hermite polynomial , for some positive integer , can be used to estimate the integral
where is a given function, by the method of Gaussian quadrature. For which polynomials is the quadrature formula exact?
Paper 4, Section I, C
commentCalculate the factorization of the matrix
Use this to evaluate and to solve the equation
with
Paper 1, Section I, H
commentSuppose that is an infinitely differentiable function on . Assume that there exist constants so that and for all . Fix and for each set
Let be the unique value of where attains its minimum. Prove that
[Hint: Express in terms of the Taylor series for at using the Lagrange form of the remainder: where is between and
Paper 2, Section I, H
commentState the Lagrange sufficiency theorem.
Find the maximum of over subject to the constraint
using Lagrange multipliers. Carefully justify why your solution is in fact the maximum.
Find the maximum of over subject to the constraint
Paper 3, Section II, H
comment(a) Suppose that and , with . What does it mean for to be a basic feasible solution of the equation
Assume that the rows of are linearly independent, every set of columns is linearly independent, and every basic solution has exactly non-zero entries. Prove that the extreme points of are the basic feasible solutions of . [Here, means that each of the coordinates of are at least 0 .]
(b) Use the simplex method to solve the linear program
Paper 4, Section II, H
comment(a) State and prove the max-flow min-cut theorem.
(b) (i) Apply the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm to find the maximum flow of the network illustrated below, where is the source and is the sink.
(ii) Verify the optimality of your solution using the max-flow min-cut theorem.
(iii) Is there a unique flow which attains the maximum? Explain your answer.
(c) Prove that the Ford-Fulkerson algorithm always terminates when the network is finite, the capacities are integers, and the algorithm is initialised where the initial flow is 0 across all edges. Prove also in this case that the flow across each edge is an integer.
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentStarting from the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, show that a stationary state of a particle of mass in a harmonic oscillator potential in one dimension with frequency satisfies
Find a rescaling of variables that leads to the simplified equation
Setting , find the equation satisfied by .
Assume now that is a polynomial
Determine the value of and deduce the corresponding energy level of the harmonic oscillator. Show that if is even then the stationary state has even parity.
Paper 2, Section II, B
commentLet be Cartesian coordinates in . The angular momentum operators satisfy the commutation relation
and its cyclic permutations. Define the total angular momentum operator and show that . Write down the explicit form of .
Show that a function of the form , where , is an eigenfunction of and find the eigenvalue. State the analogous result for .
There is an energy level for a particle in a certain spherically symmetric potential well that is 6-fold degenerate. A basis for the (unnormalized) energy eigenstates is of the form
Find a new basis that consists of simultaneous eigenstates of and and identify their eigenvalues.
[You may quote the range of eigenvalues associated with a particular eigenvalue of .]
Paper 3, Section , B
commentConsider a quantum mechanical particle moving in two dimensions with Cartesian coordinates . Show that, for wavefunctions with suitable decay as , the operators
are Hermitian, and similarly
are Hermitian.
Show that if and are Hermitian operators, then
is Hermitian. Deduce that
are Hermitian. Show that
Paper 3, Section II, B
commentConsider a particle of unit mass in a one-dimensional square well potential
with infinite outside. Find all the stationary states and their energies , and write down the general normalized solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation in terms of these.
The particle is initially constrained by a barrier to be in the ground state in the narrower square well potential
with infinite outside. The barrier is removed at time , and the wavefunction is instantaneously unchanged. Show that the particle is now in a superposition of stationary states of the original potential well, and calculate the probability that an energy measurement will yield the result .
Paper 4, Section I, B
comment(a) Define the probability density and probability current for the wavefunction of a particle of mass . Show that
and deduce that for a normalizable, stationary state wavefunction. Give an example of a non-normalizable, stationary state wavefunction for which is non-zero, and calculate the value of .
(b) A particle has the instantaneous, normalized wavefunction
where is positive and is real. Calculate the expectation value of the momentum for this wavefunction.
Paper 1, Section I, H
commentSuppose that are i.i.d. random variables.
(a) Compute the MLEs for the unknown parameters .
(b) Give the definition of an unbiased estimator. Determine whether are unbiased estimators for .
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentState and prove the Neyman-Pearson lemma.
Suppose that are i.i.d. random variables where is an unknown parameter. We wish to test the hypothesis against the hypothesis where .
(a) Find the critical region of the likelihood ratio test of size in terms of the sample mean .
(b) Define the power function of a hypothesis test and identify the power function in the setting described above in terms of the probability distribution function. [You may use without proof that is distributed as a random variable.]
(c) Define what it means for a hypothesis test to be uniformly most powerful. Determine whether the likelihood ratio test considered above is uniformly most powerful for testing against .
Paper 2, Section I, H
commentSuppose that are i.i.d. coin tosses with probability of obtaining a head.
(a) Compute the posterior distribution of given the observations in the case of a uniform prior on .
(b) Give the definition of the quadratic error loss function.
(c) Determine the value of which minimizes the quadratic error loss function. Justify your answer. Calculate .
[You may use that the , distribution has density function on given by
where is a normalizing constant. You may also use without proof that the mean of a random variable is
Paper 3, Section II, H
commentSuppose that are i.i.d. . Let
(a) Compute the distributions of and and show that and are independent.
(b) Write down the distribution of .
(c) For , find a confidence interval in each of the following situations: (i) for when is known; (ii) for when is not known; (iii) for when is not known.
(d) Suppose that are i.i.d. . Explain how you would use the test to test the hypothesis against the hypothesis . Does the test depend on whether are known?
Paper 4, Section II, 19H
commentConsider the linear model
where are known and are i.i.d. . We assume that the parameters and are unknown.
(a) Find the MLE of . Explain why is the same as the least squares estimator of .
(b) State and prove the Gauss-Markov theorem for this model.
(c) For each value of with , determine the unbiased linear estimator of which minimizes
Paper 1, Section I, A
commentA function is defined on the surface . Find the location of every stationary point of this function.
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentWrite down the Euler-Lagrange (EL) equations for a functional
where and each take specified values at and . Show that the EL equations imply that
is independent of provided satisfies a certain condition, to be specified. State conditions under which there exist additional first integrals of the equations.
Consider
where is a positive constant. Show that solutions of the EL equations satisfy
for some constant . Assuming that , find and hence determine the most general solution for as a function of subject to the conditions and as . Show that, for any such solution, as .
[Hint:
Paper 3, Section I, A
commentThe function with domain is defined by , where . Verify that is convex, using an appropriate sufficient condition.
Determine the Legendre transform of , specifying clearly its domain of definition, and find .
Show that
where and and are positive real numbers such that .
Paper 4, Section II, A
commentConsider the functional
where is subject to boundary conditions as with . [You may assume the integral converges.]
(a) Find expressions for the first-order and second-order variations and resulting from a variation that respects the boundary conditions.
(b) If , show that if and only if for all . Explain briefly how this is consistent with your results for and in part (a).
(c) Now suppose that with . By considering an integral of , show that
with equality if and only if satisfies a first-order differential equation. Deduce that global minima of with the specified boundary conditions occur precisely for
where is a constant. How is the first-order differential equation that appears in this case related to your general result for in part (a)?