Part II, 2001, Paper 3
Part II, 2001, Paper 3
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B3.10
commentLet be the projective curve (over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero) defined by the affine equation
Determine the points at infinity of and show that is smooth.
Determine the divisors of the rational functions .
Show that is a regular differential on .
Compute the divisor of . What is the genus of ?
B3.7
commentWrite down the Mayer-Vietoris sequence and describe all the maps involved.
Use the Mayer-Vietoris sequence to compute the homology of the -sphere for all .
A3.10
comment(i) Let be the problem
Explain carefully what it means for the problem to be Strong Lagrangian.
Outline the main steps in a proof that a quadratic programming problem
where is a symmetric positive semi-definite matrix, is Strong Lagrangian.
[You should carefully state the results you need, but should not prove them.]
(ii) Consider the quadratic programming problem:
State necessary and sufficient conditions for to be optimal, and use the activeset algorithm (explaining your steps briefly) to solve the problem starting with initial condition . Demonstrate that the solution you have found is optimal by showing that it satisfies the necessary and sufficient conditions stated previously.
B3.23
commentWrite down the commutation relations satisfied by the cartesian components of the total angular momentum operator .
In quantum mechanics an operator is said to be a vector operator if, under rotations, its components transform in the same way as those of the coordinate operator r. Show from first principles that this implies that its cartesian components satisfy the commutation relations
Hence calculate the total angular momentum of the nonvanishing states , where is the vacuum state.
B3.13
commentConsider an queue with arrival rate and traffic intensity less
than 1. Prove that the moment-generating function of a typical busy period, , satisfies
where is the moment-generating function of a typical service time.
If service times are exponentially distributed with parameter , show that
for all sufficiently small but positive values of .
B3.17
commentIf show that for all . Show that has trace 11 and deduce that the subshift map defined by has just two cycles of exact period 5. What are they?
A3.6 B3.4
comment(i) Define a hyperbolic fixed point of a flow determined by a differential equation where and is (i.e. differentiable). State the Hartman-Grobman Theorem for flow near a hyperbolic fixed point. For nonlinear flows in with a hyperbolic fixed point , does the theorem necessarily allow us to distinguish, on the basis of the linearized flow near between (a) a stable focus and a stable node; and (b) a saddle and a stable node? Justify your answers briefly.
(ii) Show that the system:
has a fixed point on the -axis. Show that there is a bifurcation at and determine the stability of the fixed point for and for .
Make a linear change of variables of the form , where and are constants to be determined, to bring the system into the form:
and hence determine whether the periodic orbit produced in the bifurcation is stable or unstable, and whether it exists in or .
A3.5 B3.3
comment(i) Develop the theory of electromagnetic waves starting from Maxwell equations in vacuum. You should relate the wave-speed to and and establish the existence of plane, plane-polarized waves in which takes the form
You should give the form of the magnetic field in this case.
(ii) Starting from Maxwell's equation, establish Poynting's theorem.
where and . Give physical interpretations of and the theorem.
Compute the averages over space and time of and for the plane wave described in (i) and relate them. Comment on the result.
B3.24
commentA planar flow of an inviscid, incompressible fluid is everywhere in the -direction and has velocity profile
By examining linear perturbations to the vortex sheet at that have the form , show that
and deduce the temporal stability of the sheet to disturbances of wave number .
Use this result to determine also the spatial growth rate and propagation speed of disturbances of frequency introduced at a fixed spatial position.
A3.13 B3.21
comment(i) Write the Hamiltonian for the harmonic oscillator,
in terms of creation and annihilation operators, defined by
Obtain an expression for by using the usual commutation relation between and . Deduce the quantized energy levels for this system.
(ii) Define the number operator, , in terms of creation and annihilation operators, and . The normalized eigenvector of with eigenvalue is . Show that .
Determine and in the basis defined by .
Show that
Verify the relation
by considering the action of both sides of the equation on an arbitrary basis vector.
A3.3 B3.2
comment(i) Define the notion of a measurable function between measurable spaces. Show that a continuous function is measurable with respect to the Borel -fields on and .
By using this, or otherwise, show that, when are measurable with respect to some -field on and the Borel -field on , then is also measurable.
(ii) State the Monotone Convergence Theorem for -valued functions. Prove the Dominated Convergence Theorem.
[You may assume the Monotone Convergence Theorem but any other results about integration that you use will need to be stated carefully and proved.]
Let be the real Banach space of continuous real-valued functions on with the uniform norm. Fix and define
Show that is a bounded, linear map with norm
Is it true, for every choice of , that there is function with and ?
B3.6
commentLet be the finite field with elements ( a prime), and let be a finite extension of . Define the Frobenius automorphism , verifying that it is an automorphism of .
Suppose and that is its splitting field over . Why are the zeros of distinct? If is any zero of in , show that . Prove that has at most two zeros in and that . Deduce that the Galois group of over is a cyclic group of order three.
A3.7
comment(i) Give the definition of the surface area of a parametrized surface in and show that it does not depend on the parametrization.
(ii) Let be a differentiable function of . Consider the surface of revolution:
Find a formula for each of the following: (a) The first fundamental form. (b) The unit normal. (c) The second fundamental form. (d) The Gaussian curvature.
A3.4
comment(i) Let be the cyclic subgroup of generated by the matrix , acting on the polynomial ring . Determine the ring of invariants .
(ii) Determine when is the cyclic group generated by .
[Hint: consider the eigenvectors.]
B3.8
commentLet be a bounded linear operator on a Hilbert space . Define what it means to say that is (i) compact, and (ii) Fredholm. What is the index, ind , of a Fredholm operator ?
Let be bounded linear operators on . Prove that and are Fredholm if and only if both and are Fredholm. Prove also that if is invertible and is Fredholm then .
Let be a compact linear operator on . Prove that is Fredholm with index zero.
A3.8 B3.11
comment(i) Write down a set of axioms for the theory of dense linear order with a bottom element but no top element.
(ii) Prove that this theory has, up to isomorphism, precisely one countable model.
A3.1 B3.1
comment(i) Explain what is meant by the transition semigroup of a Markov chain in continuous time. If the state space is finite, show under assumptions to be stated clearly, that for some matrix . Show that a distribution satisfies if and only if for all , and explain the importance of such .
(ii) Let be a continuous-time Markov chain on the state space with generator
Show that the transition semigroup is given by
where .
For , let
For a continuous-time chain , let be a matrix with entry
, for . Show that there is a chain with if and only if .
A3.17
comment(i) The function satisfies the differential equation
where and are constants, with boundary conditions . By integrating this equation or otherwise, show that must also satisfy the integral equation
and find the functions and .
(ii) Solve the integral equation
by finding an ordinary differential equation satisfied by together with boundary conditions.
Now solve the integral equation by the method of successive approximations and show that the solutions are the same.
B3.19
commentConsider the integral
where is the principal branch and is a positive constant. State the region of the complex -plane in which the integral defines a holomorphic function.
Show how the analytic continuation of this function can be obtained by means of an alternative integral representation using the Hankel contour.
Hence show that the analytic continuation is holomorphic except for simple poles at , and that the residue at is
Part II
A3.18
comment(i) The so-called breather solution of the sine-Gordon equation is
Describe qualitatively the behaviour of , for , when , when , and when . Explain how this solution can be interpreted in terms of motion of a kink and an antikink. Estimate the greatest separation of the kink and antikink.
(ii) The field obeys the nonlinear wave equation
where the potential has the form
Show that and are stable constant solutions.
Find a steady wave solution satisfying the boundary conditions as as . What constraint is there on the velocity
A3.9
comment(i) State the law of quadratic reciprocity.
Prove that 5 is a quadratic residue modulo primes and a quadratic non-residue modulo primes .
Determine whether 5 is a quadratic residue or non-residue modulo 119 and modulo
(ii) Explain what is meant by the continued fraction of a real number . Define the convergents to and write down the recurrence relations satisfied by their numerators and denominators.
Use the continued fraction method to find two solutions in positive integers of the equation .
A3.19 B3.20
comment(i) The diffusion equation
is discretized by the finite-difference method
where and is a constant. Derive the order of magnitude (as a power of ) of the local error for different choices of .
(ii) Investigate the stability of the above finite-difference method for different values of by the Fourier technique.
B3.14
commentA file of is to be transmitted over a communications link. At each time the sender can choose a transmission rate, , within the range Mb per second. The charge for transmitting at rate at time is . The function is fully known at time 0. If it takes a total time to transmit the file then there is a delay cost of , . Thus and are to be chosen to minimize
where and . Quoting and applying appropriate results of Pontryagin's maximum principle show that a property of the optimal policy is that there exists such that if and if .
Show that the optimal and are related by .
Suppose and . For what value of is it optimal to transmit at a constant rate 1 between times and ?
B3.18
commentWrite down a formula for the solution , for and , of the initial value problem for the heat equation:
for a bounded continuous function . State (without proof) a theorem which ensures that this formula is the unique solution in some class of functions (which should be explicitly described).
By writing , or otherwise, solve the initial value problem
for a bounded continuous function and give a class of functions in which your solution is the unique one.
Hence, or otherwise, prove that for all :
and deduce that the solutions and of corresponding to initial values and satisfy, for ,
A3.2
comment(i) (a) Write down Hamilton's equations for a dynamical system. Under what condition is the Hamiltonian a constant of the motion? What is the condition for one of the momenta to be a constant of the motion?
(b) Explain the notion of an adiabatic invariant. Give an expression, in terms of Hamiltonian variables, for one such invariant.
(ii) A mass is attached to one end of a straight spring with potential energy , where is a constant and is the length. The other end is fixed at a point . Neglecting gravity, consider a general motion of the mass in a plane containing . Show that the Hamiltonian is given by
where is the angle made by the spring relative to a fixed direction, and are the generalised momenta. Show that and the energy are constants of the motion, using Hamilton's equations.
If the mass moves in a non-circular orbit, and the spring constant is slowly varied, the orbit gradually changes. Write down the appropriate adiabatic invariant . Show that is proportional to
where
Consider an orbit for which is zero. Show that, as is slowly varied, the energy , for a constant which should be found.
[You may assume without proof that
A3.12 B3.15
comment(i) Explain what is meant by a uniformly most powerful unbiased test of a null hypothesis against an alternative.
Let be independent, identically distributed random variables, with known. Explain how to construct a uniformly most powerful unbiased size test of the null hypothesis that against the alternative that .
(ii) Outline briefly the Bayesian approach to hypothesis testing based on Bayes factors.
Let the distribution of be as in (i) above, and suppose we wish to test, as in (i), against the alternative . Suppose we assume a prior for under the alternative. Find the form of the Bayes factor , and show that, for fixed as .
B3.12
commentState and prove Birkhoff's almost-everywhere ergodic theorem.
[You need not prove convergence in and the maximal ergodic lemma may be assumed provided that it is clearly stated.]
Let be the Borel -field and let be Lebesgue measure on . Give an example of an ergodic measure-preserving map (you need not prove it is ergodic).
Let for . Find (at least for all outside a set of measure zero)
Briefly justify your answer.
B3.5
commentLet , and be the vector space of homogeneous polynomials of degree in the variables and .
(i) Define the action of on , and prove that is an irreducible representation of .
(ii) Decompose into irreducible representations of . Briefly justify your answer.
(iii) acts on the vector space of complex matrices via
Decompose this representation into irreducible representations.
B3.9
commentLet be a nonconstant holomorphic map between compact connected Riemann surfaces. Define the valency of at a point, and the degree of .
Define the genus of a compact connected Riemann surface (assuming the existence of a triangulation).
State the Riemann-Hurwitz theorem. Show that a holomorphic non-constant selfmap of a compact Riemann surface of genus is bijective, with holomorphic inverse. Verify that the Riemann surface in described in the equation is non-singular, and describe its topological type.
[Note: The description can be in the form of a picture or in words. If you apply RiemannHurwitz, explain first how you compactify the surface.]
B3.22
commentA system consists of weakly interacting non-relativistic fermions, each of mass , in a three-dimensional volume, . Derive the Fermi-Dirac distribution
where is the number of particles with energy in and . Explain the physical significance of .
Explain how the constant is determined by the number of particles and write down expressions for and the internal energy in terms of .
Show that, in the limit ,
where .
Show also that in this limit
Deduce that the condition implies that . Discuss briefly whether or not this latter condition is satisfied in a white dwarf star and in a dilute electron gas at room temperature.
Note that .
A3.14
comment(i) A spherically symmetric star has pressure and mass density , where is distance from the star's centre. Stating without proof any theorems you may need, show that mechanical equilibrium implies the Newtonian pressure support equation
where is the mass within radius and .
Write down an integral expression for the total gravitational potential energy, . Use this to derive the "virial theorem"
when is the average pressure.
(ii) Given that the total kinetic energy, , of a spherically symmetric star is related to its average pressure by the formula
for constant , use the virial theorem (stated in part (i)) to determine the condition on needed for gravitational binding. State the relation between pressure and "internal energy" for an ideal gas of non-relativistic particles. What is the corresponding relation for ultra-relativistic particles? Hence show that the formula applies in these cases, and determine the values of .
Why does your result imply a maximum mass for any star, whatever the source of its pressure? What is the maximum mass, approximately, for stars supported by
(a) thermal pressure,
(b) electron degeneracy pressure (White Dwarf),
(c) neutron degeneracy pressure (Neutron Star).
A White Dwarf can accrete matter from a companion star until its mass exceeds the Chandrasekar limit. Explain briefly the process by which it then evolves into a neutron star.
A3.11 B3.16
comment(i) Suppose that is a random variable having the normal distribution with and .
For positive constants show that
where is the standard normal distribution function.
In the context of the Black-Scholes model, derive the formula for the price at time 0 of a European call option on the stock at strike price and maturity time when the interest rate is and the volatility of the stock is .
(ii) Let denote the price of the call option in the Black-Scholes model specified in (i). Show that and sketch carefully the dependence of on the volatility (when the other parameters in the model are held fixed).
Now suppose that it is observed that the interest rate lies in the range and when it changes it is linked to the volatility by the formula . Consider a call option at strike price , where is the stock price at time 0 . There is a small increase in the interest rate; will the price of the option increase or decrease (assuming that the stock price is unaffected)? Justify your answer carefully.
[You may assume that the function is decreasing in , and increases to as , where is the standard-normal distribution function and .]
A3.15
comment(i) The pions form an isospin triplet with and , whilst the nucleons form an isospin doublet with and . Consider the isospin representation of two-particle states spanned by the basis
State which irreducible representations are contained in this representation and explain why is an isospin eigenstate.
Using
where is the isospin ladder operator, write the isospin eigenstates in terms of the basis, .
(ii) The Lie algebra of generators of is spanned by the operators satisfying the commutator algebra and . Let be an eigenvector of such that . The vector space together with the action of an arbitrary su(2) operator on defined by
forms a representation (not necessarily reducible) of . Show that if is nontrivial then it is an eigenvector of and find its eigenvalue. Given that show that and satisfy
By solving these equations evaluate . Show that . Hence show that is contained in a proper sub-representation of .
A3.16
comment(i) Incompressible fluid of kinematic viscosity occupies a parallel-sided channel . The wall is moving parallel to itself, in the direction, with velocity , where is time and are real constants. The fluid velocity satisfies the equation
write down the boundary conditions satisfied by .
Assuming that
where , find the complex constants . Calculate the velocity (in real, not complex, form) in the limit .
(ii) Incompressible fluid of viscosity fills the narrow gap between the rigid plane , which moves parallel to itself in the -direction with constant speed , and the rigid wavy wall , which is at rest. The length-scale, , over which varies is much larger than a typical value, , of .
Assume that inertia is negligible, and therefore that the governing equations for the velocity field and the pressure are
Use scaling arguments to show that these equations reduce approximately to
Hence calculate the velocity , the flow rate
and the viscous shear stress exerted by the fluid on the plane wall,
in terms of and .
Now assume that , where and , and that is periodic in with wavelength . Show that
and calculate correct to . Does increasing the amplitude of the corrugation cause an increase or a decrease in the force required to move the plane at the chosen speed
B3.25
commentConsider the equation
where and are real constants. Find the dispersion relation for waves of frequency and wavenumber . Find the phase velocity and the group velocity and sketch graphs of these functions.
Multiplying equation by , obtain an equation of the form
where and are expressions involving and its derivatives. Give a physical interpretation of this equation.
Evaluate the time-averaged energy and energy flux of a monochromatic wave , and show that