Part II, 2004, Paper 4
Part II, 2004, Paper 4
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B4.9
commentLet be an irreducible homogeneous polynomial of degree , and write for the curve it defines in . Suppose is smooth. Show that the degree of its canonical class is .
Hence, or otherwise, show that a smooth curve of genus 2 does not embed in .
B4.5
commentWrite down the definition of a covering space and a covering map. State and prove the path lifting property for covering spaces and state, without proof, the homotopy lifting property.
Suppose that a group is a group of homeomorphisms of a space . Prove that, under conditions to be stated, the quotient map is a covering map and that is isomorphic to . Give two examples in which this last result can be used to determine the fundamental group of a space.
A4.11
comment(i) Consider an unrestricted geometric programming problem
where is given by
with and positive coefficients . State the dual problem of and show that if is a dual optimum then any positive solution to the system
gives an optimum for primal problem . Here is the dual objective function.
(ii) An amount of ore has to be moved from a pit in an open rectangular skip which is to be ordered from a supplier.
The skip cost is per for the bottom and two side walls and per for the front and the back walls. The cost of loading ore into the skip is per , the cost of lifting is per , and the cost of unloading is per . The cost of moving an empty skip is negligible.
Write down an unconstrained geometric programming problem for the optimal size (length, width, height) of skip minimizing the cost of moving of ore. By considering the dual problem, or otherwise, find the optimal cost and the optimal size of the skip.
B4.24
commentDescribe briefly the variational approach to determining approximate energy eigenvalues for a Hamiltonian .
Consider a Hamiltonian and two states such that
Show that, by considering a linear combination , the variational method gives
as approximate energy eigenvalues.
Consider the Hamiltonian for an electron in the presence of two protons at and ,
Let be the ground state hydrogen atom wave function which satisfies
It is given that
and, for large , that
Consider the trial wave function . Show that the variational estimate for the ground state energy for large is
Explain why there is an attractive force between the two protons for large .
B4.12
commentConsider an queue with . Here is the arrival rate and is the mean service time. Prove that in equilibrium, the customer's waiting time has the moment-generating function given by
where is the moment-generating function of service time .
[You may assume that in equilibrium, the queue size at the time immediately after the customer's departure has the probability generating function
Deduce that when the service times are exponential of rate then
Further, deduce that takes value 0 with probability and that
Sketch the graph of as a function of .
Now consider the queue in the heavy traffic approximation, when the service-time distribution is kept fixed and the arrival rate , so that . Assuming that the second moment , check that the limiting distribution of the re-scaled waiting time is exponential, with rate .
B4.1
commentWrite an essay on Ramsey's theorem. You should include the finite and infinite versions, together with some discussion of bounds in the finite case, and give at least one application.
A4.14
commentSuppose that are independent observations, with having probability density function of the following form
where and . You should assume that is a known function, and are unknown parameters, with , and also are given linearly independent covariate vectors. Show that
where is the log-likelihood and .
Discuss carefully the (slightly edited) output given below, and briefly suggest another possible method of analysis using the function ( ).
1:
7:
Read 6 items
1: 327172565065248688773520
Read 6 items
gender <-
1: b b b g g g
Read 6 items
age <-
1: 13&under 14-18 19&over
4: 13&under 14-18 19&over
7 :
Read 6 items
gender <- factor (gender) ; age <- factor (age)
gender age, binomial, weights
Coefficients:
Null deviance: on 5 degrees of freedom
Residual deviance: on 2 degrees of freedom
Number of Fisher Scoring iterations: 3
B4.4
commentDefine what it means for a manifold to be oriented, and define a volume form on an oriented manifold.
Prove carefully that, for a closed connected oriented manifold of dimension , .
[You may assume the existence of volume forms on an oriented manifold.]
If and are closed, connected, oriented manifolds of the same dimension, define the degree of a map .
If has degree and , can be
(i) infinite? (ii) a single point? (iii) empty?
Briefly justify your answers.
B4.21
commentUsing Lorentz gauge, , Maxwell's equations for a current distribution can be reduced to . The retarded solution is
where . Explain, heuristically, the rôle of the -function and Heaviside step function in this formula.
The current distribution is produced by a point particle of charge moving on a world line , where is the particle's proper time, so that
where . Show that
where , and further that, setting ,
where should be defined. Verify that
Evaluating quantities at show that
where . Hence verify that and
Verify this formula for a stationary point charge at the origin.
[Hint: If has simple zeros at then
A4.5
commentConsider a frame moving with velocity v relative to the laboratory frame where . The electric and magnetic fields in are and , while those measured in are and . Given that , show that
for any closed circuit and hence that .
Now consider a fluid with electrical conductivity and moving with velocity . Use Ohm's law in the moving frame to relate the current density to the electric field in the laboratory frame, and show that if remains finite in the limit then
The magnetic helicity in a volume is given by where is the vector potential. Show that if the normal components of and both vanish on the surface bounding then .
B4.26
commentWrite an essay on the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability of a vortex sheet. Your essay should include a detailed linearised analysis, a physical interpretation of the instability, and an informal discussion of nonlinear effects and of the effects of viscosity.
A4.15 B4.22
commentThe states of the hydrogen atom are denoted by with and associated energy eigenvalue , where
A hydrogen atom is placed in a weak electric field with interaction Hamiltonian
a) Derive the necessary perturbation theory to show that to the change in the energy associated with the state is given by
The wavefunction of the ground state is
By replacing , in the denominator of by show that
b) Find a matrix whose eigenvalues are the perturbed energies to for the states and . Hence, determine these perturbed energies to in terms of the matrix elements of between these states.
[Hint:
A4.3
commentState and prove the Dominated Convergence Theorem. [You may assume the Monotone Convergence Theorem.]
Let and be real numbers, with . Prove carefully that
[Any standard results that you use should be stated precisely.]
B4.3
commentLet be a finite Galois extension of fields. Explain what is meant by the Galois correspondence between subfields of containing and subgroups of . Show that if then is a normal subgroup of if and only if is normal. What is in this case?
Let be the splitting field of over . Prove that is isomorphic to the dihedral group of order 8. Hence determine all subfields of , expressing each in the form for suitable .
A4.17 B4.25
commentStarting from the Ricci identity
give an expression for the curvature tensor of the Levi-Civita connection in terms of the Christoffel symbols and their partial derivatives. Using local inertial coordinates, or otherwise, establish that
A vector field with components satisfies
Show, using equation that
and hence that
where is the Ricci tensor. Show that equation may be written as
If the metric is taken to be the Schwarzschild metric
show that is a solution of . Calculate .
Electromagnetism can be described by a vector potential and a Maxwell field tensor satisfying
The divergence of is arbitrary and we may choose . With this choice show that in a general spacetime
Hence show that in the Schwarzschild spacetime a tensor field whose only non-trivial components are , where is a constant, satisfies the field equations .
A4.7
commentWrite an essay on the Gauss-Bonnet theorem and its proof.
A4.9
commentWrite an essay on trees. You should include a proof of Cayley's result on the number of labelled trees of order .
Let be a graph of order . Which of the following statements are equivalent to the statement that is a tree? Give a proof or counterexample in each case.
(a) is acyclic and .
(b) is connected and .
(c) is connected, triangle-free and has at least two leaves.
(d) has the same degree sequence as , for some tree .
A4.4
comment(a) Let be the maximal power of the prime dividing the order of the finite group , and let denote the number of subgroups of of order . State clearly the numerical restrictions on given by the Sylow theorems.
If and are subgroups of of orders and respectively, and their intersection has order , show the set contains elements.
(b) The finite group has 48 elements. By computing the possible values of , show that cannot be simple.
B4.7
commentSuppose that is a bounded linear operator on an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space , and that is real and non-negative for each .
(a) Show that is Hermitian.
(b) Let . Show that
(c) Show that is an approximate eigenvalue for .
Suppose in addition that is compact and injective.
(d) Show that is an eigenvalue for , with finite-dimensional eigenspace.
Explain how this result can be used to diagonalise .
B4.13
commentDefine a cyclic code of length .
Show how codewords can be identified with polynomials in such a way that cyclic codes correspond to ideals in the polynomial ring with a suitably chosen multiplication rule.
Prove that any cyclic code has a unique generator, i.e. a polynomial of minimum degree, such that the code consists of the multiples of this polynomial. Prove that the rank of the code equals , and show that divides .
Let be a cyclic code. Set
(the dual code). Prove that is cyclic and establish how the generators of and are related to each other.
Show that the repetition and parity codes are cyclic, and determine their generators.
A4.8 B4.10
commentWrite an essay on recursive functions. Your essay should include a sketch of why every computable function is recursive, and an explanation of the existence of a universal recursive function, as well as brief discussions of the Halting Problem and of the relationship between recursive sets and recursively enumerable sets.
[You may assume that every recursive function is computable. You do not need to give proofs that particular functions to do with prime-power decompositions are recursive.]
A4.1
comment(a) Give three definitions of a continuous-time Markov chain with a given -matrix on a finite state space: (i) in terms of holding times and jump probabilities, (ii) in terms of transition probabilities over small time intervals, and (iii) in terms of finite-dimensional distributions.
(b) A flea jumps clockwise on the vertices of a triangle; the holding times are independent exponential random variables of rate one. Find the eigenvalues of the corresponding -matrix and express transition probabilities , in terms of these roots. Deduce the formulas for the sums
in terms of the functions and .
Find the limits
What is the connection between the decompositions and
A4.21
commentState Watson's lemma, describing the asymptotic behaviour of the integral
as , given that has the asymptotic expansion
as , where .
Consider the integral
where and has a unique maximum in the interval at , with , such that
By using the change of variable from to , defined by
deduce an asymptotic expansion for as . Show that the leading-order term gives
The gamma function is defined for by
By means of the substitution , or otherwise, deduce that
as
B4.19
commentLet . Sketch the path of const. through the point , and the path of const. through the point .
By integrating along these paths, show that as
where the constants and are to be computed.
A4.6 B4.17
comment(a) Consider the map , defined on , where , , and the constant satisfies . Give, with reasons, the values of (if any) for which the map has (i) a fixed point, (ii) a cycle of least period , (iii) an aperiodic orbit. Does the map exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions?
Show (graphically if you wish) that if the map has an -cycle then it has an infinite number of such cycles. Is this still true if is replaced by
(b) Consider the map
where and are defined as in Part (a), and is a parameter.
Find the regions of the plane for which the map has (i) no fixed points, (ii) exactly two fixed points.
Now consider the possible existence of a 2-cycle of the map when , and suppose the elements of the cycle are with . By expanding in powers of , so that , and similarly for and , show that
Use this result to sketch the region of the plane in which 2-cycles exist. How many distinct cycles are there for each value of in this region?
A4.23
commentLet satisfy the linear integral equation
where the measure and the contour are such that exists and is unique.
Let be defined in terms of by
(a) Show that
where
(b) Show that
,
where
(c) By recalling that the equation
admits the Lax pair
write down an expression for which gives rise to the one-soliton solution of the equation. Write down an expression for and for .
B4.6
commentLet be a finite extension of , and the ring of integers of . Write an essay outlining the proof that every non-zero ideal of can be written as a product of non-zero prime ideals, and that this factorisation is unique up to the order of the factors.
A4.10
commentWrite an essay on pseudoprimes and their role in primality testing. You should discuss pseudoprimes, Carmichael numbers, and Euler and strong pseudoprimes. Where appropriate, your essay should include small examples to illustrate your statements.
A4.22 B4.20
commentWrite an essay on the method of conjugate gradients. You should define the method, list its main properties and sketch the relevant proof. You should also prove that (in exact arithmetic) the method terminates in a finite number of steps, briefly mention the connection with Krylov subspaces, and describe the approach of preconditioned conjugate gradients.
B4.14
commentConsider the deterministic dynamical system
where and are constant matrices, , and is the control variable, . What does it mean to say that the system is controllable?
Let . Show that if is the set of possible values for as the control is allowed to vary, then is a vector space.
Show that each of the following three conditions is equivalent to controllability of the system.
(i) The set for all .
(ii) The matrix is (strictly) positive definite.
(iii) The matrix has rank .
Consider the scalar system
where . Show that this system is controllable.
B4.18
comment(a) State a theorem of local existence, uniqueness and dependence on the initial data for a solution for an ordinary differential equation. Assuming existence, prove that the solution depends continuously on the initial data.
(b) State a theorem of local existence of a solution for a general quasilinear firstorder partial differential equation with data on a smooth non-characteristic hypersurface. Prove this theorem in the linear case assuming the validity of the theorem in part (a); explain in your proof the importance of the non-characteristic condition.
A4.2
commentConsider a system of coordinates rotating with angular velocity relative to an inertial coordinate system.
Show that if a vector is changing at a rate in the inertial system, then it is changing at a rate
with respect to the rotating system.
A solid body rotates with angular velocity in the absence of external torque. Consider the rotating coordinate system aligned with the principal axes of the body.
(a) Show that in this system the motion is described by the Euler equations
, where are the components of the angular velocity in the rotating system and are the principal moments of inertia.
(b) Consider a body with three unequal moments of inertia, . Show that rotation about the 1 and 3 axes is stable to small perturbations, but rotation about the 2 axis is unstable.
(c) Use the Euler equations to show that the kinetic energy, , and the magnitude of the angular momentum, , are constants of the motion. Show further that
A4.13 B4.15
commentSuppose that is the parameter of a non-degenerate exponential family. Derive the asymptotic distribution of the maximum-likelihood estimator of based on a sample of size . [You may assume that the density is infinitely differentiable with respect to the parameter, and that differentiation with respect to the parameter commutes with integration.]
Part II 2004
B4.11
commentLet be a probability space and let be random variables. Write an essay in which you discuss the statement: if almost everywhere, then . You should include accounts of monotone, dominated, and bounded convergence, and of Fatou's lemma.
[You may assume without proof the following fact. Let be a measure space, and let be non-negative with finite integral If are non-negative measurable functions with for all , then as .]
A4.16
commentExplain the operation of the junction. Your account should include a discussion of the following topics:
(a) the rôle of doping and the fermi-energy;
(b) the rôle of majority and minority carriers;
(c) the contact potential;
(d) the relationship between the current flowing through the junction and the external voltage applied across the junction;
(e) the property of rectification.
B4.2
commentWrite an essay on the finite-dimensional representations of , including a proof of their complete reducibility, and a description of the irreducible representations and the decomposition of their tensor products.
B4.8
commentLet be a lattice in , where and . By constructing an appropriate family of charts, show that the torus is a Riemann surface and that the natural projection is a holomorphic map.
[You may assume without proof any known topological properties of .]
Let be another lattice in , with and . By considering paths from 0 to an arbitrary , show that if is a conformal equivalence then
[Any form of the Monodromy Theorem and basic results on the lifts of paths may be used without proof, provided that these are correctly stated. You may assume without proof that every injective holomorphic function is of the form , for some .]
Give an explicit example of a non-constant holomorphic map that is not a conformal equivalence.
Part II 2004
B4.23
commentDerive the Bose-Einstein expression for the mean number of Bose particles occupying a particular single-particle quantum state of energy , when the chemical potential is and the temperature is in energy units.
Why is the chemical potential for a gas of photons given by ?
Show that, for black-body radiation in a cavity of volume at temperature , the mean number of photons in the angular frequency range is
Hence, show that the total energy of the radiation in the cavity is
where is a constant that need not be evaluated.
Use thermodynamic reasoning to find the entropy and pressure of the radiation and verify that
Why is this last result to be expected for a gas of photons?
A4.18
comment(a) Consider an ideal gas of Fermi particles obeying the Pauli exclusion principle with a set of one-particle energy eigenstates . Given the probability at temperature that there are particles in the eigenstate :
determine the appropriate normalization factor . Use this to find the average number of Fermi particles in the eigenstate .
Explain briefly why in generalizing these discrete eigenstates to a continuum in momentum space (in the range to ) we must multiply by the density of states
where is the degeneracy of the eigenstates and is the volume.
(b) With the energy expressed as a momentum integral
consider the effect of changing the volume so slowly that the occupation numbers do not change (i.e. particle number and entropy remain fixed). Show that the momentum varies as and so deduce from the first law expression
that the pressure is given by
Show that in the non-relativistic limit where is the internal energy, while for ultrarelativistic particles .
(c) Now consider a Fermi gas in the limit with all momentum eigenstates filled up to the Fermi momentum . Explain why the number density can be written as
From similar expressions for the energy, deduce in both the non-relativistic and ultrarelativistic limits that the pressure may be written as
where should be specified in each case.
(d) Examine the stability of an object of radius consisting of such a Fermi degenerate gas by comparing the gravitational binding energy with the total kinetic energy. Briefly point out the relevance of these results to white dwarfs and neutron stars.
A4.12 B4.16
commentWhat is Brownian motion ? Briefly explain how Brownian motion can be considered as a limit of simple random walks. State the Reflection Principle for Brownian motion, and use it to derive the distribution of the first passage time to some level .
Suppose that , where is constant. Stating clearly any results to which you appeal, derive the distribution of the first-passage time to .
Now let , where . Find the density of .
A4.20
commentIn a reference frame rotating about a vertical axis with angular velocity , the horizontal components of the momentum equation for a shallow layer of inviscid, incompressible, fluid of uniform density are
where and are independent of the vertical coordinate , and is given by hydrostatic balance. State the nonlinear equations for conservation of mass and of potential vorticity for such a flow in a layer occupying . Find the pressure .
By linearising the equations about a state of rest and uniform thickness , show that small disturbances , where , to the height of the free surface obey
where and are the values of and the vorticity at .
Obtain the dispersion relation for homogeneous solutions of the form ] and calculate the group velocity of these Poincaré waves. Comment on the form of these results when and , where the lengthscale should be identified.
Explain what is meant by geostrophic balance. Find the long-time geostrophically balanced solution, and , that results from initial conditions and . Explain briefly, without detailed calculation, how the evolution from the initial conditions to geostrophic balance could be found.
A4.19
comment(a) Solute diffuses and is advected in a moving fluid. Derive the transport equation and deduce that the solute concentration satisfies the advection-diffusion equation
where is the velocity field and the diffusivity. Write down the form this equation takes when , both and are unidirectional, in the -direction, and is a constant.
(b) A solution occupies the region , bounded by a semi-permeable membrane at across which fluid passes (by osmosis) with velocity
where is a positive constant, is a fixed uniform solute concentration in the region , and is the solute concentration in the fluid. The membrane does not allow solute to pass across , and the concentration at is a fixed value (where .
Write down the differential equation and boundary conditions to be satisfied by in a steady state. Make the equations non-dimensional by using the substitutions
and show that the concentration distribution is given by
where and should be defined, and is given by the transcendental equation
What is the dimensional fluid velocity , in terms of
(c) Show that if, instead of taking a finite value of , you had tried to take infinite, then you would have been unable to solve for unless , but in that case there would be no way of determining .
(d) Find asymptotic expansions for from equation in the following limits:
(i) For fixed, expand as a power series in , and equate coefficients to show that
(ii) For fixed, take logarithms, expand as a power series in , and show that
What is the limiting value of in the limits (i) and (ii)?
(e) Both the expansions in (d) break down when . To investigate the double limit , show that can be written as
where and is to be determined. Show that for , and for .
Briefly discuss the implication of your results for the problem raised in (c) above.
B4.27
commentA plane shock is moving with speed into a perfect gas. Ahead of the shock the gas is at rest with pressure and density , while behind the shock the velocity, pressure and density of the gas are and respectively. Derive the Rankine-Hugoniot relations across the shock. Show that
where and is the ratio of the specific heats of the gas. Now consider a change of frame such that the shock is stationary and the gas has a component of velocity parallel to the shock. Deduce that the angle of deflection of the flow which is produced by a stationary shock inclined at an angle to an oncoming stream of Mach number is given by
[Note that