Part II, 2017
Part II, 2017
Jump to course
Paper 1, Section II, I
commentLet be an algebraically closed field.
(a) Let and be varieties defined over . Given a function , define what it means for to be a morphism of varieties.
(b) If is an affine variety, show that the coordinate ring coincides with the ring of regular functions on . [Hint: You may assume a form of the Hilbert Nullstellensatz.]
(c) Now suppose and are affine varieties. Show that if and are isomorphic, then there is an isomorphism of -algebras .
(d) Show that is not isomorphic to .
Paper 2, Section II, I
commentLet be an algebraically closed field of any characteristic.
(a) Define what it means for a variety to be non-singular at a point .
(b) Let be a hypersurface for an irreducible homogeneous polynomial. Show that the set of singular points of is , where is the ideal generated by
(c) Consider the projective plane curve corresponding to the affine curve in given by the equation
Find the singular points of this projective curve if char . What goes wrong if char ?
Paper 3, Section II, I
comment(a) Define what it means to give a rational map between algebraic varieties. Define a birational map.
(b) Let
Define a birational map from to . [Hint: Consider lines through the origin.]
(c) Let be the surface given by the equation
Consider the blow-up of at the origin, i.e. the subvariety of defined by the equations for , with coordinates on . Let be the projection and . Recall that the proper transform of is the closure of in . Give equations for , and describe the fibres of the morphism .
Paper 4, Section II, I
comment(a) Let and be non-singular projective curves over a field and let be a non-constant morphism. Define the ramification degree of at a point .
(b) Suppose char . Let be the plane cubic with , and let . Explain how the projection
defines a morphism . Determine the degree of and the ramification degrees for all .
(c) Let be a non-singular projective curve and let . Show that there is a non-constant rational function on which is regular on .
Paper 1, Section II, I
commentLet be a topological space and let and be points of .
(a) Explain how a path from to defines a map .
(b) Prove that is an isomorphism of groups.
(c) Let be based loops in . Suppose that are homotopic as unbased maps, i.e. the homotopy is not assumed to respect basepoints. Show that the corresponding elements of are conjugate.
(d) Take to be the 2-torus . If are homotopic as unbased loops as in part (c), then exhibit a based homotopy between them. Interpret this fact algebraically.
(e) Exhibit a pair of elements in the fundamental group of which are homotopic as unbased loops but not as based loops. Justify your answer.
Paper 2, Section II, I
comment(a) (i) Define the push-out of the following diagram of groups.
When is a push-out a free product with amalgamation?
(ii) State the Seifert-van Kampen theorem.
(b) Let (recalling that is the real projective plane), and let .
(i) Compute the fundamental group of the space .
(ii) Show that there is a surjective homomorphism , where is the symmetric group on three elements.
(c) Let be the covering space corresponding to the kernel of .
(i) Draw and justify your answer carefully.
(ii) Does retract to a graph? Justify your answer briefly.
(iii) Does deformation retract to a graph? Justify your answer briefly.
Paper 3, Section II, I
commentThe -torus is the product of circles:
For all and , compute .
[You may assume that relevant spaces are triangulable, but you should state carefully any version of any theorem that you use.]
Paper 4, Section II, I
commentRecall that is real projective -space, the quotient of obtained by identifying antipodal points. Consider the standard embedding of as the unit sphere in .
(a) For odd, show that there exists a continuous map such that is orthogonal to , for all .
(b) Exhibit a triangulation of .
(c) Describe the map induced by the antipodal map, justifying your answer.
(d) Show that, for even, there is no continuous map such that is orthogonal to for all .
Paper 1, Section II,
commentConsider a sequence of measurable functions converging pointwise to a function . The Lebesgue measure is denoted by .
(a) Consider a Borel set with finite Lebesgue measure . Define for the sets
Prove that for any , one has and . Prove that for any .
(b) Consider a Borel set with finite Lebesgue measure . Prove that for any , there is a Borel set for which and such that converges to uniformly on as . Is the latter still true when ?
(c) Assume additionally that for some , and there exists an for which for all . Prove that .
(d) Let and be as in part (c). Consider a Borel set with finite Lebesgue measure . Prove that are integrable on and as . Deduce that converges weakly to in when . Does the convergence have to be strong?
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentDenote by the space of continuous complex-valued functions on converging to zero at infinity. Denote by the Fourier transform of .
(i) Prove that the image of under is included and dense in , and that is injective. [Fourier inversion can be used without proof when properly stated.]
(ii) Calculate the Fourier transform of , the characteristic function of .
(iii) Prove that belongs to and is the Fourier transform of a function , which you should determine.
(iv) Using the functions and the open mapping theorem, deduce that the Fourier transform is not surjective from to .
Paper 4, Section II,
commentConsider with the Lebesgue measure. Denote by the Fourier transform of and by the Fourier-Plancherel transform of . Let for and define for
(i) Prove that is a vector subspace of , and is a Hilbert space for the inner product , where denotes the complex conjugate of .
(ii) Construct a function , that is not almost everywhere equal to a continuous function.
(iii) For , prove that is a well-defined function and that converges to in as .
[Hint: Prove that where is an approximation of the unit as
(iv) Deduce that if and then .
[Hint: Prove that: (1) there is a sequence such that converges to almost everywhere; (2) is uniformly bounded in as .]
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentA one-dimensional lattice has sites with lattice spacing . In the tight-binding approximation, the Hamiltonian describing a single electron is given by
where is the normalised state of the electron localised on the lattice site. Using periodic boundary conditions , solve for the spectrum of this Hamiltonian to derive the dispersion relation
Define the Brillouin zone. Determine the number of states in the Brillouin zone.
Calculate the velocity and effective mass of the particle. For which values of is the effective mass negative?
In the semi-classical approximation, derive an expression for the time-dependence of the position of the electron in a constant electric field.
Describe how the concepts of metals and insulators arise in the model above.
Paper 2, Section II, C
commentGive an account of the variational method for establishing an upper bound on the ground-state energy of a Hamiltonian with a discrete spectrum , where
A particle of mass moves in the three-dimensional potential
where are constants and is the distance to the origin. Using the normalised variational wavefunction
show that the expected energy is given by
Explain why there is necessarily a bound state when . What can you say about the existence of a bound state when ?
[Hint: The Laplacian in spherical polar coordinates is
Paper 3, Section II, C
commentA particle of mass and charge moving in a uniform magnetic field is described by the Hamiltonian
where is the canonical momentum, which obeys . The mechanical momentum is defined as . Show that
Define
Derive the commutation relation obeyed by and . Write the Hamiltonian in terms of and and hence solve for the spectrum.
In symmetric gauge, states in the lowest Landau level with have wavefunctions
where and is a positive integer. By considering the profiles of these wavefunctions, estimate how many lowest Landau level states can fit in a disc of radius .
Paper 4, Section II, C
comment(a) In one dimension, a particle of mass is scattered by a potential where as . For wavenumber , the incoming and outgoing asymptotic plane wave states with positive and negative parity are given by
(i) Explain how this basis may be used to define the -matrix,
(ii) For what choice of potential would you expect ? Why?
(b) The potential is given by
with a constant.
(i) Show that
where . Verify that . Explain the physical meaning of this result.
(ii) For , by considering the poles or zeros of , show that there exists one bound state of negative parity if .
(iii) For and , show that has a pole at
where and are real and
Explain the physical significance of this result.
Paper 1, Section II,
comment(a) Define a continuous time Markov chain with infinitesimal generator and jump chain .
(b) Let be a transient state of a continuous-time Markov chain with . Show that the time spent in state has an exponential distribution and explicitly state its parameter.
[You may use the fact that if , then for .]
(c) Let be an asymmetric random walk in continuous time on the non-negative integers with reflection at 0 , so that
Suppose that and . Show that for all , the total time spent in state is exponentially distributed with parameter .
Assume now that has some general distribution with probability generating function . Find the expected amount of time spent at 0 in terms of .
Paper 2, Section II, K
comment(a) Give the definition of a Poisson process on . Let be a Poisson process on . Show that conditional on , the jump times have joint density function
where is the indicator of the set .
(b) Let be a Poisson process on with intensity and jump times . If is a real function, we define for all
Show that for all the following is true
Paper 3, Section II, K
comment(a) Define the Moran model and Kingman's -coalescent. Define Kingman's infinite coalescent.
Show that Kingman's infinite coalescent comes down from infinity. In other words, with probability one, the number of blocks of is finite at any time .
(b) Give the definition of a renewal process.
Let denote the sequence of inter-arrival times of the renewal process . Suppose that .
Prove that as .
Prove that for some strictly positive .
[Hint: Consider the renewal process with inter-arrival times for some suitable .]
Paper 4, Section II,
comment(a) Give the definition of an queue. Prove that if is the arrival rate and the service rate and , then the length of the queue is a positive recurrent Markov chain. What is the equilibrium distribution?
If the queue is in equilibrium and a customer arrives at some time , what is the distribution of the waiting time (time spent waiting in the queue plus service time)?
(b) We now modify the above queue: on completion of service a customer leaves with probability , or goes to the back of the queue with probability . Find the distribution of the total time a customer spends being served.
Hence show that equilibrium is possible if and find the stationary distribution.
Show that, in equilibrium, the departure process is Poisson.
[You may use relevant theorems provided you state them clearly.]
Paper 2, Section II, E
commentConsider the function
where the contour is the boundary of the half-strip and , taken anti-clockwise.
Use integration by parts and the method of stationary phase to:
(i) Obtain the leading term for coming from the vertical lines for large .
(ii) Show that the leading term in the asymptotic expansion of the function for large positive is
and obtain an estimate for the remainder as for some to be determined.
Paper 3, Section II, E
commentConsider the integral representation for the modified Bessel function
where is a simple closed contour containing the origin, taken anti-clockwise.
Use the method of steepest descent to determine the full asymptotic expansion of for large real positive
Paper 4, Section II, E
commentConsider solutions to the equation
of the form
with the assumption that, for large positive , the function is small compared to for all
Obtain equations for the , which are formally equivalent to ( . Solve explicitly for and . Show that it is consistent to assume that for some constants . Give a recursion relation for the .
Deduce that there exist two linearly independent solutions to with asymptotic expansions as of the form
Determine a recursion relation for the . Compute and .
Paper 1, Section I,
comment(a) Prove that every regular language is also a context-free language (CFL).
(b) Show that, for any fixed , the set of regular expressions over the alphabet is a CFL, but not a regular language.
Paper 1, Section II,
comment(a) Give an encoding to integers of all deterministic finite-state automata (DFAs). [Here the alphabet of each such DFA is always taken from the set , and the states for each such DFA are always taken from the set
(b) Show that the set of codes for which the corresponding DFA accepts a finite language is recursive. Moreover, if the language is finite, show that we can compute its size from .
Paper 2, Section I,
comment(a) Give explicit examples, with justification, of a language over some finite alphabet which is:
(i) context-free, but not regular;
(ii) recursive, but not context-free.
(b) Give explicit examples, with justification, of a subset of which is:
(i) recursively enumerable, but not recursive;
(ii) neither recursively enumerable, nor having recursively enumerable complement in .
Paper 3, Section I, 4H
comment(a) Define what it means for a context-free grammar (CFG) to be in Chomsky normal form (CNF). Give an example, with justification, of a context-free language (CFL) which is not defined by any CFG in CNF.
(b) Show that the intersection of two CFLs need not be a CFL.
(c) Let be a CFL over an alphabet . Show that need not be a CFL.
Paper 3, Section II, Automata and formal languages
comment(a) Given , define a many-one reduction of to . Show that if is recursively enumerable (r.e.) and then is also recursively enumerable.
(b) State the theorem, and use it to prove that a set is r.e. if and only if .
(c) Consider the sets of integers defined via
Show that .
Paper 4, Section I,
comment(a) Describe the process for converting a deterministic finite-state automaton into a regular expression defining the same language, . [You need only outline the steps, without proof, but you should clearly define all terminology you introduce.]
(b) Consider the language over the alphabet defined via
Show that satisfies the pumping lemma for regular languages but is not a regular language itself.
Paper 1, Section I, E
commentConsider a Lagrangian system with Lagrangian , where , and constraints
Use the method of Lagrange multipliers to show that this is equivalent to a system with Lagrangian , where , and are coordinates on the surface of constraints.
Consider a bead of unit mass in constrained to move (with no potential) on a wire given by an equation , where are Cartesian coordinates. Show that the Euler-Lagrange equations take the form
for some which should be specified. Find one first integral of the EulerLagrange equations, and thus show that
where should be given in the form of an integral.
[Hint: You may assume that the Euler-Lagrange equations hold in all coordinate systems.]
Paper 2, Section I, E
commentDerive the Lagrange equations from the principle of stationary action
where the end points and are fixed.
Let and be a scalar and a vector, respectively, depending on . Consider the Lagrangian
and show that the resulting Euler-Lagrange equations are invariant under the transformations
where is an arbitrary function, and is a constant which should be determined.
Paper 2, Section II, E
commentShow that an object's inertia tensor about a point displaced from the centre of mass by a vector is given by
where is the total mass of the object, and is the inertia tensor about the centre of mass.
Find the inertia tensor of a cube of uniform density, with edge of length , about one of its vertices.
Paper 3, Section I, E
commentDefine an integrable system with -dimensional phase space. Define angle-action variables.
Consider a two-dimensional phase space with the Hamiltonian
where is a positive integer and the mass changes slowly in time. Use the fact that the action is an adiabatic invariant to show that the energy varies in time as , where is a constant which should be found.
Paper 4, Section I, E
commentConsider the Poisson bracket structure on given by
and show that , where and is any polynomial function on .
Let , where are positive constants. Find the explicit form of Hamilton's equations
Find a condition on such that the oscillation described by
is linearly unstable, where are small.
Paper 4, Section II,
commentExplain how geodesics of a Riemannian metric
arise from the kinetic Lagrangian
where .
Find geodesics of the metric on the upper half plane
with the metric
and sketch the geodesic containing the points and .
[Hint: Consider
Paper 1, Section I, G
commentLet be a binary code of length . Define the following decoding rules: (i) ideal observer, (ii) maximum likelihood, (iii) minimum distance.
Let denote the probability that a digit is mistransmitted and suppose . Prove that maximum likelihood and minimum distance decoding agree.
Suppose codewords 000 and 111 are sent with probabilities and respectively with error probability . If we receive 110 , how should it be decoded according to the three decoding rules above?
Paper 1, Section II, G
commentLet be a binary linear code. Explain what it means for to have length and . Explain what it means for a codeword of to have weight .
Suppose has length , rank , and codewords of weight . The weight enumerator polynomial of is given by
What is Prove that if and only if .
Define the dual code of .
(i) Let . Show that
(ii) Extend the definition of weight to give a weight for . Suppose that for real and all
For real, by evaluating
in two different ways, show that
Paper 2, Section I, G
commentProve that a decipherable code with prescribed word lengths exists if and only if there is a prefix-free code with the same word lengths.
Paper 2, Section II, G
commentDefine the entropy, , of a random variable . State and prove Gibbs' inequality.
Hence, or otherwise, show that and determine when equality occurs.
Show that the Discrete Memoryless Channel with channel matrix
has capacity .
Paper 3, Section I, G
commentFind and describe all binary cyclic codes of length 7 . Pair each code with its dual code. Justify your answer.
Paper 4, Section I, G
commentDescribe the RSA system with public key and private key .
Give a simple example of how the system is vulnerable to a homomorphism attack.
Describe the El-Gamal signature scheme and explain how this can defeat a homomorphism attack.
Paper 1, Section I, C
commentIn a homogeneous and isotropic universe, describe the relative displacement of two galaxies in terms of a scale factor . Show how the relative velocity of these galaxies is given by the relation , where you should specify in terms of .
From special relativity, the Doppler shift of light emitted by a particle moving away radially with speed can be approximated by
where is the wavelength of emitted light and is the observed wavelength. For the observed light from distant galaxies in a homogeneous and isotropic expanding universe, show that the redshift defined by is given by
where is the time of emission and is the observation time.
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentThe evolution of a flat homogeneous and isotropic universe with scale factor , mass density and pressure obeys the Friedmann and energy conservation equations
where is the Hubble parameter (observed today with value ) and is the cosmological constant.
Use these two equations to derive the acceleration equation
For pressure-free matter and , solve the energy conservation equation to show that the Friedmann and acceleration equations can be re-expressed as
where we have taken and we have defined the relative densities today as
Solve the Friedmann equation and show that the scale factor can be expressed as
Find an expression for the time at which the matter density and the effective density caused by the cosmological constant are equal. (You need not evaluate this explicitly.)
Paper 2, Section I, C
commentIn a homogeneous and isotropic universe , the acceleration equation for the scale factor is given by
where is the mass density and is the pressure.
If the matter content of the universe obeys the strong energy condition , show that the acceleration equation can be rewritten as , with Hubble parameter . Show that
where is the measured value today at . Hence, or otherwise, show that
Use this inequality to find an upper bound on the age of the universe.
Paper 3, Section I, C
comment(a) In the early universe electrons, protons and neutral hydrogen are in thermal equilibrium and interact via,
The non-relativistic number density of particles in thermal equlibrium is
where, for each species is the number of degrees of freedom, is its mass, and is its chemical potential. [You may assume and .]
Stating any assumptions required, use these expressions to derive the Saha equation which governs the relative abundances of electrons, protons and hydrogen,
where is the binding energy of hydrogen, which should be defined.
(b) Naively, we might expect that the majority of electrons and protons combine to form neutral hydrogen once the temperature drops below the binding energy, i.e. . In fact recombination does not happen until a much lower temperature, when . Briefly explain why this is.
[Hint: It may help to consider the relative abundances of particles in the early universe.]
Paper 3, Section II, C
comment(a) The scalar moment of inertia for a system of particles is given by
where is the particle's mass and is a vector giving the particle's position. Show that, for non-relativistic particles,
where is the total kinetic energy of the system and is the total force on particle
Assume that any two particles and interact gravitationally with potential energy
Show that
where is the total potential energy of the system. Use the above to prove the virial theorem.
(b) Consider an approximately spherical overdensity of stationary non-interacting massive particles with initial constant density and initial radius . Assuming the system evolves until it reaches a stable virial equilibrium, what will the final and be in terms of their initial values? Would this virial solution be stable if our particles were baryonic rather than non-interacting? Explain your answer.
Paper 4, Section I, C
comment(a) By considering a spherically symmetric star in hydrostatic equilibrium derive the pressure support equation
where is the radial distance from the centre of the star, is the stellar mass contained inside that radius, and and are the pressure and density at radius respectively.
(b) Propose, and briefly justify, boundary conditions for this differential equation, both at the centre of the star , and at the stellar surface .
Suppose that for some . Show that the density satisfies the linear differential equation
where , for some constant , is a rescaled radial coordinate. Find .
Paper 1, Section II, I
commentDefine what it means for a subset to be a manifold.
For manifolds and , state what it means for a map to be smooth. For such a smooth map, and , define the differential map .
What does it mean for to be a regular value of ? Give an example of a map and a which is not a regular value of .
Show that the set of real-valued matrices with determinant 1 can naturally be viewed as a manifold . What is its dimension? Show that matrix multiplication , defined by , is smooth. [Standard theorems may be used without proof if carefully stated.] Describe the tangent space of at the identity as a subspace of .
Show that if then the set of real-valued matrices with determinant 0 , viewed as a subset of , is not a manifold.
Paper 2, Section II, I
commentLet be a regular smooth curve. Define the curvature and torsion of and derive the Frenet formulae. Give the assumption which must hold for torsion to be well-defined, and state the Fundamental Theorem for curves in .
Let be as above and be another regular smooth curve with curvature and torsion . Suppose and for all , and that there exists a non-empty open subinterval such that . Show that .
Now let be an oriented surface and let be a regular smooth curve contained in . Define normal curvature and geodesic curvature. When is a geodesic? Give an example of a surface and a geodesic whose normal curvature vanishes identically. Must such a surface contain a piece of a plane? Can such a geodesic be a simple closed curve? Justify your answers.
Show that if is a geodesic and the Gaussian curvature of satisfies , then we have the inequality , where denotes the mean curvature of and the curvature of . Give an example where this inequality is sharp.
Paper 3, Section II, I
commentLet be a manifold and let be a smooth regular curve on . Define the total length and the arc length parameter . Show that can be reparametrized by arc length.
Let denote a regular surface, let be distinct points and let be a smooth regular curve such that . We say that is length minimising if for all smooth regular curves with , we have . By deriving a formula for the derivative of the energy functional corresponding to a variation of , show that a length minimising curve is necessarily a geodesic. [You may use the following fact: given a smooth vector field along with , there exists a variation of such that
Let denote the unit sphere and let denote the surface . For which pairs of points does there exist a length minimising smooth regular curve with and ? Justify your answer.
Paper 4, Section II, I
commentLet be a surface and . Define the exponential map exp and compute its differential . Deduce that is a local diffeomorphism.
Give an example of a surface and a point for which the exponential map fails to be defined globally on . Can this failure be remedied by extending the surface? In other words, for any such , is there always a surface such that the exponential map defined with respect to is globally defined on ?
State the version of the Gauss-Bonnet theorem with boundary term for a surface and a closed disc whose boundary can be parametrized as a smooth closed curve in .
Let be a flat surface, i.e. . Can there exist a closed disc , whose boundary can be parametrized as a smooth closed curve, and a surface such that all of the following hold:
(i) ;
(ii) letting be , we have that is a closed disc in with boundary
(iii) the Gaussian curvature of satisfies , and there exists a such that ?
Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentConsider the dynamical system
where is a constant.
(a) Find the fixed points of the system, and classify them for .
Sketch the phase plane for each of the cases (i) (ii) and (iii) .
(b) Given , show that the domain of stability of the origin includes the union over of the regions
By considering , or otherwise, show that more information is obtained from the union over than considering only the case .
Hint: If then
Paper 2, Section II, A
comment(a) State Liapunov's first theorem and La Salle's invariance principle. Use these results to show that the fixed point at the origin of the system
is asymptotically stable.
(b) State the Poincaré-Bendixson theorem. Show that the forced damped pendulum
with , has a periodic orbit that encircles the cylindrical phase space , and that it is unique.
[You may assume that the Poincaré-Bendixson theorem also holds on a cylinder, and comment, without proof, on the use of any other standard results.]
(c) Now consider for , where . Use the energy-balance method to show that there is a homoclinic orbit in if , where .
Explain briefly why there is no homoclinic orbit in for .
Paper 3, Section II, A
commentState, without proof, the centre manifold theorem. Show that the fixed point at the origin of the system
where is a constant, is nonhyperbolic at . What are the dimensions of the linear stable and (non-extended) centre subspaces at this point?
Make the substitutions and and derive the resultant equations for and .
The extended centre manifold is given by
where and can be expanded as power series about . What is known about and from the centre manifold theorem? Assuming that , determine to and to . Hence obtain the evolution equation on the centre manifold correct to , and identify the type of bifurcation distinguishing between the cases and .
If now , assume that and extend your calculations of to and of the dynamics on the centre manifold to . Hence sketch the bifurcation diagram in the neighbourhood of .
Paper 4, Section II, A
commentConsider the one-dimensional map defined by
where and are constants, is a parameter and .
(a) Find the fixed points of and determine the linear stability of . Hence show that there are bifurcations at , at and, if , at .
Sketch the bifurcation diagram for each of the cases:
In each case show the locus and stability of the fixed points in the -plane, and state the type of each bifurcation. [Assume that there are no further bifurcations in the region sketched.]
(b) For the case (i.e. , you may assume that
Show that there are at most three 2-cycles and determine when they exist. By considering , or otherwise, show further that one 2-cycle is always unstable when it exists and that the others are unstable when . Sketch the bifurcation diagram showing the locus and stability of the fixed points and 2-cycles. State briefly what you would expect to occur for .
Paper 1, Section II, 35D
commentIn some inertial reference frame , there is a uniform electric field directed along the positive -direction and a uniform magnetic field directed along the positive direction. The magnitudes of the fields are and , respectively, with . Show that it is possible to find a reference frame in which the electric field vanishes, and determine the relative speed of the two frames and the magnitude of the magnetic field in the new frame.
[Hint: You may assume that under a standard Lorentz boost with speed c along the -direction, the electric and magnetic field components transform as
where the Lorentz factor .]
A point particle of mass and charge moves relativistically under the influence of the fields and . The motion is in the plane . By considering the motion in the reference frame in which the electric field vanishes, or otherwise, show that, with a suitable choice of origin, the worldline of the particle has components in the frame of the form
Here, is a constant speed with Lorentz factor is the particle's proper time, and is a frequency that you should determine.
Using dimensionless coordinates,
sketch the trajectory of the particle in the -plane in the limiting cases and .
Paper 3, Section II, D
commentBy considering the force per unit volume on a charge density and current density due to an electric field and magnetic field , show that
where and the symmetric tensor should be specified.
Give the physical interpretation of and and explain how can be used to calculate the net electromagnetic force exerted on the charges and currents within some region of space in static situations.
The plane carries a uniform charge per unit area and a current per unit length along the -direction. The plane carries the opposite charge and current. Show that between these planes
and for and .
Use to find the electromagnetic force per unit area exerted on the charges and currents in the plane. Show that your result agrees with direct calculation of the force per unit area based on the Lorentz force law.
If the current is due to the motion of the charge with speed , is it possible for the force between the planes to be repulsive?
Paper 4, Section II, D
commentA dielectric material has a real, frequency-independent relative permittivity with . In this case, the macroscopic polarization that develops when the dielectric is placed in an external electric field is . Explain briefly why the associated bound current density is
[You should ignore any magnetic response of the dielectric.]
A sphere of such a dielectric, with radius , is centred on . The sphere scatters an incident plane electromagnetic wave with electric field
where and is a constant vector. Working in the Lorenz gauge, show that at large distances , for which both and , the magnetic vector potential of the scattered radiation is
where with .
In the far-field, where , the electric and magnetic fields of the scattered radiation are given by
By calculating the Poynting vector of the scattered and incident radiation, show that the ratio of the time-averaged power scattered per unit solid angle to the time-averaged incident power per unit area (i.e. the differential cross-section) is
where and .
[You may assume that, in the Lorenz gauge, the retarded potential due to a localised current distribution is
where the retarded time
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentFluid of density and dynamic viscosity occupies the region in Cartesian coordinates . A semi-infinite, dense array of cilia occupy the half plane , and apply a stress in the -direction on the adjacent fluid, working at a constant and uniform rate per unit area, which causes the fluid to move with steady velocity . Give a careful physical explanation of the boundary condition
paying particular attention to signs, where is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid. Why would you expect the fluid motion to be confined to a thin region near for sufficiently large values of ?
Write down the viscous-boundary-layer equations governing the thin region of fluid motion. Show that the flow can be approximated by a stream function
Determine the functions and . Show that the dimensionless function satisfies
What boundary conditions must be satisfied by ? By considering how the volume flux varies with downstream location , or otherwise, determine (with justification) the sign of the transverse flow .
Paper 2, Section II, B
commentA cylinder of radius falls at speed without rotating through viscous fluid adjacent to a vertical plane wall, with its axis horizontal and parallel to the wall. The distance between the cylinder and the wall is . Use lubrication theory in a frame of reference moving with the cylinder to determine that the two-dimensional volume flux between the cylinder and the wall is
upwards, relative to the cylinder.
Determine an expression for the viscous shear stress on the cylinder. Use this to calculate the viscous force and hence the torque on the cylinder. If the cylinder is free to rotate, what does your result say about the sense of rotation of the cylinder?
[Hint: You may quote the following integrals:
Paper 3, Section II, B
commentA spherical bubble of radius a moves with velocity through a viscous fluid that is at rest far from the bubble. The pressure and velocity fields outside the bubble are given by
respectively, where is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid, is the position vector from the centre of the bubble and . Using suffix notation, or otherwise, show that these fields satisfy the Stokes equations.
Obtain an expression for the stress tensor for the fluid outside the bubble and show that the velocity field above also satisfies all the appropriate boundary conditions.
Compute the drag force on the bubble.
[Hint: You may use
where the integral is taken over the surface of a sphere of radius a and is the outward unit normal to the surface.]
Paper 4, Section II, B
commentA horizontal layer of inviscid fluid of density occupying flows with velocity above a horizontal layer of inviscid fluid of density occupying and flowing with velocity , in Cartesian coordinates . There are rigid boundaries at . The interface between the two layers is perturbed to position .
Write down the full set of equations and boundary conditions governing this flow. Derive the linearised boundary conditions appropriate in the limit . Solve the linearised equations to show that the perturbation to the interface grows exponentially in time if
Sketch the right-hand side of this inequality as a function of . Thereby deduce the minimum value of that makes the system unstable for all wavelengths.
Paper 1, Section I, E
commentCalculate the value of the integral
where stands for Principal Value and is a positive integer.
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentThe Riemann zeta function is defined by
for .
Show that
Let be defined by
where is the Hankel contour.
Show that provides an analytic continuation of for a range of which should be determined.
Hence evaluate .
Paper 2, Section I, E
commentEuler's formula for the Gamma function is
Use Euler's formula to show
where is a constant.
Evaluate .
[Hint: You may use
Paper 2, Section II, E
commentThe hypergeometric equation is represented by the Papperitz symbol
and has solution .
Functions and are defined by
and
where is not an integer.
Show that and obey the hypergeometric equation .
Explain why can be written in the form
where and are independent of but depend on and .
Suppose that
with and . Find expressions for and .
Paper 3, Section I, E
commentFind all the singular points of the differential equation
and determine whether they are regular or irregular singular points.
By writing , find two linearly independent solutions to this equation.
Comment on the relationship of your solutions to the nature of the singular points of the original differential equation.
Paper 4, Section I,
commentConsider the differential equation
Laplace's method finds a solution of this differential equation by writing in the form
where is a closed contour.
Determine . Hence find two linearly independent real solutions of for real.
Paper 1, Section II, I
comment(a) Let be a field and let . What does it mean for a field extension of to be a splitting field for over ?
Show that the splitting field for over is unique up to isomorphism.
(b) Find the Galois groups over the rationals for the following polynomials: (i) . (ii) .
Paper 2, Section II, I
comment(a) Define what it means for a finite field extension of a field to be separable. Show that is of the form for some .
(b) Let and be distinct prime numbers. Let . Express in the form and find the minimal polynomial of over .
(c) Give an example of a field extension of finite degree, where is not of the form . Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section II, I
comment(a) Let be a finite field of characteristic . Show that is a finite Galois extension of the field of elements, and that the Galois group of over is cyclic.
(b) Find the Galois groups of the following polynomials:
(i) over .
(ii) over .
(iii) over .
Paper 4, Section II, I
comment(a) State the Fundamental Theorem of Galois Theory.
(b) What does it mean for an extension of to be cyclotomic? Show that a cyclotomic extension of is a Galois extension and prove that its Galois group is Abelian.
(c) What is the Galois group of over , where is a primitive 7 th root of unity? Identify the intermediate subfields , with , in terms of , and identify subgroups of to which they correspond. Justify your answers.
Paper 1, Section II, D
commentA static black hole in a five-dimensional spacetime is described by the metric
where is a constant.
A geodesic lies in the plane and has affine parameter . Show that
are both constants of motion. Write down a third constant of motion.
Show that timelike and null geodesics satisfy the equation
for some potential which you should determine.
Circular geodesics satisfy the equation . Calculate the values of for which circular null geodesics exist and for which circular timelike geodesics exist. Which are stable and which are unstable? Briefly describe how this compares to circular geodesics in the four-dimensional Schwarzschild geometry.
Paper 2, Section II, D
comment(a) The Friedmann-Robertson-Walker metric is given by
where and is the scale factor.
For , show that this metric can be written in the form
Calculate the equatorial circumference of the submanifold defined by constant and .
Calculate the proper volume, defined by , of the hypersurface defined by constant .
(b) The Friedmann equations are
where is the energy density, is the pressure, is the cosmological constant and dot denotes .
The Einstein static universe has vanishing pressure, . Determine and as a function of the density .
The Einstein static universe with and is perturbed by radiation such that
where and . Show that the Einstein static universe is unstable to this perturbation.
Paper 3, Section II, D
commentLet be a two-dimensional manifold with metric of signature .
(i) Let . Use normal coordinates at the point to show that one can choose two null vectors that form a basis of the vector space .
(ii) Consider the interval . Let be a null curve through and be the tangent vector to at . Show that the vector is either parallel to or parallel to .
(iii) Show that every null curve in is a null geodesic.
[Hint: You may wish to consider the acceleration .]
(iv) By providing an example, show that not every null curve in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime is a null geodesic.
Paper 4, Section II, D
comment(a) In the transverse traceless gauge, a plane gravitational wave propagating in the direction is described by a perturbation of the Minkowski metric in Cartesian coordinates , where
and is a constant matrix. Spacetime indices in this question are raised or lowered with the Minkowski metric.
The energy-momentum tensor of a gravitational wave is defined to be
Show that and hence, or otherwise, show that energy and momentum are conserved.
(b) A point mass undergoes harmonic motion along the -axis with frequency and amplitude . Compute the energy flux emitted in gravitational radiation.
[Hint: The quadrupole formula for time-averaged energy flux radiated in gravitational waves is
\left\langle\frac{d E}{d t}\right\rangle=\frac{1}{5}\left\langle\dddot{Q}_{i j} \dddot{Q}_{i j}\right\rangle
where is the reduced quadrupole tensor.]
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentLet be a graph of order satisfying . Show that is Hamiltonian.
Give an example of a planar graph , with , that is Hamiltonian, and also an example of a planar graph , with , that is not Hamiltonian.
Let be a planar graph with the property that the boundary of the unbounded face is a Hamilton cycle of . Prove that .
Paper 2, Section II, H
commentState and prove Hall's theorem about matchings in bipartite graphs.
Let be an matrix, with all entries non-negative reals, such that every row sum and every column sum is 1. By applying Hall's theorem, show that there is a permutation of such that for all .
Paper 3, Section II, H
commentDefine the Ramsey numbers for integers . Show that exists for all . Show also that for all .
Let be fixed. Give a red-blue colouring of the edges of for which there is no red and no blue odd cycle. Show, however, that for any red-blue colouring of the edges of there must exist either a red or a blue odd cycle.
Paper 4, Section II, H
commentLet be a graph of maximum degree . Show the following:
(i) Every eigenvalue of satisfies .
(ii) If is regular then is an eigenvalue.
(iii) If is regular and connected then the multiplicity of as an eigenvalue is 1 .
(iv) If is regular and not connected then the multiplicity of as an eigenvalue is greater than 1 .
Let be the adjacency matrix of the Petersen graph. Explain why , where is the identity matrix and is the all-1 matrix. Find, with multiplicities, the eigenvalues of the Petersen graph.
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentDefine a Lie point symmetry of the first order ordinary differential equation 0. Describe such a Lie point symmetry in terms of the vector field that generates it.
Consider the -dimensional Hamiltonian system governed by the differential equation
Define the Poisson bracket . For smooth functions show that the associated Hamiltonian vector fields satisfy
If is a first integral of , show that the Hamiltonian vector field generates a Lie point symmetry of . Prove the converse is also true if has a fixed point, i.e. a solution of the form .
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentLet and be non-singular matrices depending on which are periodic in with period . Consider the associated linear problem
for the vector . On the assumption that these equations are compatible, derive the zero curvature equation for .
Let denote the matrix satisfying
where is the identity matrix. You should assume is unique. By considering , show that the matrix satisfies the Lax equation
Deduce that are first integrals.
By considering the matrices
show that the periodic Sine-Gordon equation has infinitely many first integrals. [You need not prove anything about independence.]
Paper 3, Section II, A
commentLet be a smooth solution to the equation
which decays rapidly as and let be the associated Schrödinger operator. You may assume and constitute a Lax pair for KdV.
Consider a solution to which has the asymptotic form
Find evolution equations for and . Deduce that is -independent.
By writing in the form
show that
Deduce that are first integrals of KdV.
By writing a differential equation for (with real), show that these first integrals are trivial when is even.
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentLet be a normed vector space over the real numbers.
(a) Define the dual space of and prove that is a Banach space. [You may use without proof that is a vector space.]
(b) The Hahn-Banach theorem states the following. Let be a real vector space, and let be sublinear, i.e., and for all and all . Let be a linear subspace, and let be linear and satisfy for all . Then there exists a linear functional such that for all and .
Using the Hahn-Banach theorem, prove that for any non-zero there exists such that and .
(c) Show that can be embedded isometrically into a Banach space, i.e. find a Banach space and a linear map with for all .
Paper 2, Section II, F
comment(a) Let be a normed vector space and a closed subspace with . Show that is nowhere dense in .
(b) State any version of the Baire Category theorem.
(c) Let be an infinite-dimensional Banach space. Show that cannot have a countable algebraic basis, i.e. there is no countable subset such that every can be written as a finite linear combination of elements of .
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentLet be a non-empty compact Hausdorff space and let be the space of real-valued continuous functions on .
(i) State the real version of the Stone-Weierstrass theorem.
(ii) Let be a closed subalgebra of . Prove that and implies that where the function is defined by . [You may use without proof that implies .]
(iii) Prove that is normal and state Urysohn's Lemma.
(iv) For any , define by for . Justifying your answer carefully, find
Paper 4, Section II, F
commentLet be a complex Hilbert space with inner product and let be a bounded linear map.
(i) Define the spectrum , the point spectrum , the continuous spectrum , and the residual spectrum .
(ii) Show that is self-adjoint and that . Show that if is compact then so is .
(iii) Assume that is compact. Prove that has a singular value decomposition: for or , there exist orthonormal systems and and such that, for any ,
[You may use the spectral theorem for compact self-adjoint linear operators.]
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentState the Completeness Theorem for Propositional Logic.
[You do not need to give definitions of the various terms involved.]
State the Compactness Theorem and the Decidability Theorem, and deduce them from the Completeness Theorem.
A set of propositions is called finitary if there exists a finite set of propositions such that . Give examples to show that an infinite set of propositions may or may not be finitary.
Now let and be sets of propositions such that every valuation is a model of exactly one of and . Show that there exist finite subsets of and of with , and deduce that and are finitary.
Paper 2, Section II, H
commentGive the inductive and synthetic definitions of ordinal addition, and prove that they are equivalent.
Which of the following are always true for ordinals and and which can be false? Give proofs or counterexamples as appropriate.
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv) If then
(v) If then
[In parts (iv) and (v) you may assume without proof that ordinal multiplication is associative.]
Paper 3, Section II, H
commentState and prove Zorn's Lemma. [You may assume Hartogs' Lemma.] Indicate clearly where in your proof you have made use of the Axiom of Choice.
Show that has a basis as a vector space over .
Let be a vector space over . Show that all bases of have the same cardinality.
[Hint: How does the cardinality of relate to the cardinality of a given basis?]
Paper 4, Section II, H
commentProve that every set has a transitive closure. [If you apply the Axiom of Replacement to a function-class , you must explain clearly why is indeed a function-class.]
State the Axiom of Foundation and the Principle of -Induction, and show that they are equivalent (in the presence of the other axioms of ).
State the -Recursion Theorem.
Sets are defined for each ordinal by recursion, as follows: is the set of all countable subsets of , and for a non-zero limit. Does there exist an with ? Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section I, B
commentA model of insect dispersal and growth in one spatial dimension is given by
where and are constants, , and may be positive or negative.
By setting , where is some time-like variable satisfying , show that a suitable choice of yields
where subscript denotes differentiation with respect to or .
Consider a similarity solution of the form where . Show that must satisfy
[You may use the fact that these are solved by
where
For , what is the maximum distance from the origin that insects ever reach? Give your answer in terms of and .
Paper 2, Section I, B
commentA bacterial nutrient uptake model is represented by the reaction system
where the are rate constants. Let and represent the concentrations of and respectively. Initially and . Write down the governing differential equation system for the concentrations.
Either by using the differential equations or directly from the reaction system above, find two invariant quantities. Use these to simplify the system to
By setting and and rescaling time, show that the system can be written as
where and and should be given. Give the initial conditions for and .
[Hint: Note that is equivalent to in reaction systems.]
Paper 3, Section I, B
commentA stochastic birth-death process has a master equation given by
where is the probability that there are individuals in the population at time for and for .
Give the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation for this system.
Use this Fokker-Planck equation to find expressions for and .
[Hint: The general form for a Fokker-Planck equation in is
You may use this general form, stating how and are constructed. Alternatively, you may derive a Fokker-Plank equation directly by working from the master equation.]
Paper 3, Section II, B
commentIn a discrete-time model, adults and larvae of a population at time are represented by and respectively. The model is represented by the equations
You may assume that and . Give an explanation of what each of the terms represents, and hence give a description of the population model.
By combining the equations to describe the dynamics purely in terms of the adults, find all equilibria of the system. Show that the equilibrium with the population absent is unstable exactly when there exists an equilibrium with the population present .
Give the condition on and for the equilibrium with to be stable, and sketch the corresponding region in the plane.
What happens to the population close to the boundaries of this region?
If this model was modified to include stochastic effects, briefly describe qualitatively the likely dynamics near the boundaries of the region found above.
Paper 4, Section I, B
commentConsider an epidemic model with host demographics (natural births and deaths).
The system is given by
where are the susceptibles, are the infecteds, is the total population size and the parameters and are positive. The basic reproduction ratio is defined as
Show that the system has an endemic equilibrium (where the disease is present) for . Show that the endemic equilibrium is stable.
Interpret the meaning of the case and show that in this case the approximate period of (decaying) oscillation around the endemic equilibrium is given by
Suppose now a vaccine is introduced which is given to some proportion of the population at birth, but not enough to eradicate the disease. What will be the effect on the period of (decaying) oscillations?
Paper 4, Section II, B
commentAn activator-inhibitor system is described by the equations
where .
Find and sketch the range of for which the spatially homogeneous system has a stable stationary solution with and .
Considering spatial perturbations of the form about the solution found above, find conditions for the system to be unstable. Sketch this region in the -plane for fixed (for a value of such that the region is non-empty).
Show that , the critical wavenumber at the onset of the instability, is given by
Paper 1, Section II, H
commentLet be the ring of integers in a number field , and let be a non-zero ideal of .
(a) Show that .
(b) Show that is a finite abelian group.
(c) Show that if has , then .
(d) Suppose , and , with and . Show that is principal.
[You may assume that has an integral basis.]
Paper 2, Section II, 18H
comment(a) Let be a number field, the ring of integers in the units in the number of real embeddings of , and the number of pairs of complex embeddings of .
Define a group homomorphism with finite kernel, and prove that the image is a discrete subgroup of .
(b) Let where is a square-free integer. What is the structure of the group of units of ? Show that if is divisible by a prime then every unit of has norm . Find an example of with a unit of norm .
Paper 4, Section II, H
comment(a) Write down , when , and or . [You need not prove your answer.]
Let , where is a square-free integer. Find an integral basis of [Hint: Begin by considering the relative traces , for a quadratic subfield of
(b) Compute the ideal class group of .
Paper 1, Section , G
commentDefine the Legendre symbol .
State Gauss' lemma and use it to compute where is an odd prime.
Show that if is a power of 2 , and is a prime dividing , then .
Paper 2, Section I, G
commentState and prove Legendre's formula for . Use it to compute .
Paper 3, Section I, G
commentExplain what is meant by an Euler pseudoprime and a strong pseudoprime. Show that 65 is an Euler pseudoprime to the base if and only if . How many such bases are there? Show that the bases for which 65 is a strong pseudoprime do not form a subgroup of .
Paper 3, Section II, G
commentLet be a positive integer which is not a square. Assume that the continued fraction expansion of takes the form .
(a) Define the convergents , and show that and are coprime.
(b) The complete quotients may be written in the form , where and are rational numbers. Use the relation
to find formulae for and in terms of the 's and 's. Deduce that and are integers.
(c) Prove that Pell's equation has infinitely many solutions in integers and .
(d) Find integers and satisfying .
Paper 4, Section I, G
commentShow that, for a real number,
Hence prove that
where is a constant you should make explicit.
Paper 4, Section II, 10G
comment(a) State Dirichlet's theorem on primes in arithmetic progression.
(b) Let be the discriminant of a binary quadratic form, and let be an odd prime. Show that is represented by some binary quadratic form of discriminant if and only if is soluble.
(c) Let and . Show that and each represent infinitely many primes. Are there any primes represented by both and ?
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentState the Householder-John theorem and explain how it can be used in designing iterative methods for solving a system of linear equations . [You may quote other relevant theorems if needed.]
Consider the following iterative scheme for solving . Let , where is the diagonal part of , and and are the strictly lower and upper triangular parts of , respectively. Then, with some starting vector , the scheme is as follows:
Prove that if is a symmetric positive definite matrix and , then, for any , the above iteration converges to the solution of the system .
Which method corresponds to the case
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentThe Poisson equation in the unit square , equipped with the zero Dirichlet boundary conditions on , is discretized with the nine-point formula:
where , and are the grid points with .
(i) Find the order of the local truncation error of the approximation.
(ii) Prove that the order of the truncation error is smaller if satisfies the Laplace equation .
(iii) Show that the modified nine-point scheme
has a truncation error of the same order as in part (ii).
(iv) Let be a solution to the system of linear equations arising from the modified nine-point scheme in part (iii). Further, let be the exact solution and let be the error of approximation at grid points. Prove that there exists a constant such that
[Hint: The nine-point discretization of can be written as
where is the five-point discretization and
[Hint: The matrix A of the nine-point scheme is symmetric, with the eigenvalues
Paper 3, Section II, A
commentLet be a real symmetric matrix with real and distinct eigenvalues and a corresponding orthogonal basis of normalized real eigenvectors .
To estimate the eigenvector of whose eigenvalue is , the power method with shifts is employed which has the following form:
Three versions of this method are considered:
(i) no shift: ;
(ii) single shift: ;
(iii) double shift: .
Assume that , where is very small, so that the terms are negligible, and that contains substantial components of all the eigenvectors.
By considering the approximation after iterations in the form
find as a function of for each of the three versions of the method.
Compare the convergence rates of the three versions of the method, with reference to the number of iterations needed to achieve a prescribed accuracy.
Paper 4, Section II, A
comment(a) The diffusion equation
is approximated by the Crank-Nicolson scheme
with . Here , and is an approximation to . Assuming that , show that the above scheme can be written in the form
where and the real matrices and should be found. Using matrix analysis, find the range of for which the scheme is stable.
[Hint: All Toeplitz symmetric tridiagonal (TST) matrices have the same set of orthogonal eigenvectors, and a TST matrix with the elements and has the eigenvalues . ]
(b) The wave equation
with given initial conditions for and , is approximated by the scheme
with the Courant number now . Applying the Fourier technique, find the range of for which the method is stable.
Paper 2, Section II, K
commentDuring each of time periods a venture capitalist, Vicky, is presented with an investment opportunity for which the rate of return for that period is a random variable; the rates of return in successive periods are independent identically distributed random variables with distributions concentrated on . Thus, if is Vicky's capital at period , then , where is the proportion of her capital she chooses to invest at period , and is the rate of return for period . Vicky desires to maximize her expected yield over periods, where the yield is defined as , and and are respectively her initial and final capital.
(a) Express the problem of finding an optimal policy in a dynamic programming framework.
(b) Show that in each time period, the optimal strategy can be expressed in terms of the quantity which solves the optimization problem . Show that if . [Do not calculate explicitly.]
(c) Compare her optimal policy with the policy which maximizes her expected final capital .
Paper 3, Section II, K
commentA particle follows a discrete-time trajectory on given by
for . Here is a fixed integer, is a real constant, and are the position of the particle and control action at time , respectively, and is a sequence of independent random vectors with
Find the optimal control, i.e. the control action , defined as a function of , that minimizes
where is given.
On which of and does the optimal control depend?
Find the limiting form of the optimal control as , and the minimal average cost per unit time.
Paper 4, Section II,
commentA file of gigabytes (GB) is to be transmitted over a communications link. At each time the sender can choose a transmission rate within the range GB per second. The charge for transmitting at rate at time is . The function is fully known at time . 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 . Using Pontryagin's maximum principle, or otherwise, 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 . Show that it is optimal to transmit at a constant rate between times , where is the unique positive solution to the equation
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentThe position and momentum operators of the harmonic oscillator can be written as
where is the mass, is the frequency and the Hamiltonian is
Assuming that
derive the commutation relations for and . Construct the Hamiltonian in terms of and . Assuming that there is a unique ground state, explain how all other energy eigenstates can be constructed from it. Determine the energy of each of these eigenstates.
Consider the modified Hamiltonian
where is a dimensionless parameter. Use perturbation theory to calculate the modified energy levels to second order in , quoting any standard formulae that you require. Show that the modified Hamiltonian can be written as
Assuming , calculate the modified energies exactly. Show that the results are compatible with those obtained from perturbation theory.
Paper 2, Section II, C
commentLet be a set of Hermitian operators obeying
where is any unit vector. Show that implies that
for any vectors a and . Explain, with reference to the properties , how can be related to the intrinsic angular momentum for a particle of spin .
Show that the operators are Hermitian and obey
Show how can be used to write any state as a linear combination of eigenstates of . Use this to deduce that if the system is in a normalised state when is measured, then the results will be obtained with probabilities
If is a state corresponding to the system having spin up along a direction defined by a unit vector , show that a measurement will find the system to have spin up along with probability .
Paper 3, Section II, C
commentThe angular momentum operators obey the commutation relations
where .
A quantum mechanical system involves the operators and such that
Define and . Show that and obey the same commutation relations as and .
Suppose that the system is in the state such that . Show that is an eigenstate of . Let . Show that is an eigenstate of and find the eigenvalue. How many other states do you expect to find with same value of ? Find them.
Paper 4, Section II, C
commentThe Hamiltonian for a quantum system in the Schrödinger picture is
where is independent of time and the parameter is small. Define the interaction picture corresponding to this Hamiltonian and derive a time evolution equation for interaction picture states.
Let and be eigenstates of with distinct eigenvalues and respectively. Show that if the system was in the state in the remote past, then the probability of measuring it to be in a different state at a time is
Let the system be a simple harmonic oscillator with , where . Let be the ground state which obeys . Suppose
with . In the remote past the system was in the ground state. Find the probability, to lowest non-trivial order in , for the system to be in the first excited state in the far future.
Paper 1, Section II,
commentFor a positive integer , we want to estimate the parameter in the binomial statistical model , based on an observation .
(a) Compute the maximum likelihood estimator for . Show that the posterior distribution for under a uniform prior on is , and specify and . [The p.d.f. of is given by
(b) (i) For a risk function , define the risk of an estimator of , and the Bayes risk under a prior for .
(ii) Under the loss function
find a Bayes optimal estimator for the uniform prior. Give its risk as a function of .
(iii) Give a minimax optimal estimator for the loss function given above. Justify your answer.
Paper 2, Section II,
commentWe consider the problem of estimating in the model , where
Here is the indicator of the set , and is known. This estimation is based on a sample of i.i.d. , and we denote by the ordered sample.
(a) Compute the mean and the variance of . Construct an unbiased estimator of taking the form , where , specifying .
(b) Show that is consistent and find the limit in distribution of . Justify your answer, citing theorems that you use.
(c) Find the maximum likelihood estimator of . Compute for all real . Is unbiased?
(d) For , show that has a limit in for some . Give explicitly the value of and the limit. Why should one favour using over ?
Paper 3, Section II,
commentWe consider the problem of estimating an unknown in a statistical model where , based on i.i.d. observations whose distribution has p.d.f. .
In all the parts below you may assume that the model satisfies necessary regularity conditions.
(a) Define the score function of . Prove that has mean 0 .
(b) Define the Fisher Information . Show that it can also be expressed as
(c) Define the maximum likelihood estimator of . Give without proof the limits of and of ) (in a manner which you should specify). [Be as precise as possible when describing a distribution.]
(d) Let be a continuously differentiable function, and another estimator of such that with probability 1 . Give the limits of and of (in a manner which you should specify).
Paper 4, Section II,
commentFor the statistical model , where is a known, positive-definite matrix, we want to estimate based on i.i.d. observations with distribution .
(a) Derive the maximum likelihood estimator of . What is the distribution of ?
(b) For , construct a confidence region such that .
(c) For , compute the maximum likelihood estimator of for the following parameter spaces:
(i) .
(ii) for some unit vector .
(d) For , we want to test the null hypothesis (i.e. against the composite alternative . Compute the likelihood ratio statistic and give its distribution under the null hypothesis. Compare this result with the statement of Wilks' theorem.
Paper 1, Section II, J
comment(a) Give the definition of the Borel -algebra on and a Borel function where is a measurable space.
(b) Suppose that is a sequence of Borel functions which converges pointwise to a function . Prove that is a Borel function.
(c) Let be the function which gives the th binary digit of a number in ) (where we do not allow for the possibility of an infinite sequence of 1 s). Prove that is a Borel function.
(d) Let be the function such that for is equal to the number of digits in the binary expansions of which disagree. Prove that is non-negative measurable.
(e) Compute the Lebesgue measure of , i.e. the set of pairs of numbers in whose binary expansions disagree in a finite number of digits.
Paper 2, Section II, J
comment(a) Give the definition of the Fourier transform of a function .
(b) Explain what it means for Fourier inversion to hold.
(c) Prove that Fourier inversion holds for . Show all of the steps in your computation. Deduce that Fourier inversion holds for Gaussian convolutions, i.e. any function of the form where and .
(d) Prove that any function for which Fourier inversion holds has a bounded, continuous version. In other words, there exists bounded and continuous such that for a.e. .
(e) Does Fourier inversion hold for ?
Paper 3, Section II, J
comment(a) Suppose that is a sequence of random variables on a probability space . Give the definition of what it means for to be uniformly integrable.
(b) State and prove Hölder's inequality.
(c) Explain what it means for a family of random variables to be bounded. Prove that an bounded sequence is uniformly integrable provided .
(d) Prove or disprove: every sequence which is bounded is uniformly integrable.
Paper 4, Section II, J
comment(a) Suppose that is a finite measure space and is a measurable map. Prove that defines a measure on .
(b) Suppose that is a -system which generates . Using Dynkin's lemma, prove that is measure-preserving if and only if for all .
(c) State Birkhoff's ergodic theorem and the maximal ergodic lemma.
(d) Consider the case where is Lebesgue measure on . Let be the following map. If is the binary expansion of (where we disallow infinite sequences of ), then where and are respectively the even and odd elements of .
(i) Prove that is measure-preserving. [You may assume that is measurable.]
(ii) Prove or disprove: is ergodic.
Paper 1, Section II, G
comment(a) Prove that if there exists a faithful irreducible complex representation of a finite group , then the centre is cyclic.
(b) Define the permutations by
and let .
(i) Using the relations and , prove that has order 18 .
(ii) Suppose that and are complex cube roots of unity. Prove that there is a (matrix) representation of over such that
(iii) For which values of is faithful? For which values of is irreducible?
(c) Note that is a normal subgroup of which is isomorphic to . By inducing linear characters of this subgroup, or otherwise, obtain the character table of .
Deduce that has the property that is cyclic but has no faithful irreducible representation over .
Paper 2, Section II, G
commentIn this question you may assume the following result. Let be a character of a finite group and let . If is a rational number, then is an integer.
(a) If and are positive integers, we denote their highest common factor by . Let be an element of order in the finite group . Suppose that is conjugate to for all with and . Prove that is an integer for all characters of .
[You may use the following result without proof. Let be an th root of unity. Then
is an integer.]
Deduce that all the character values of symmetric groups are integers.
(b) Let be a group of odd order.
Let be an irreducible character of with . Prove that
where is an algebraic integer. Deduce that .
Paper 3, Section II, G
comment(a) State Burnside's theorem.
(b) Let be a non-trivial group of prime power order. Show that if is a non-trivial normal subgroup of , then .
Deduce that a non-abelian simple group cannot have an abelian subgroup of prime power index.
(c) Let be a representation of the finite group over . Show that is a linear character of . Assume that for some . Show that has a normal subgroup of index 2 .
Now let be a group of order , where is an odd integer. By considering the regular representation of , or otherwise, show that has a normal subgroup of index
Deduce that if is a non-abelian simple group of order less than 80 , then has order 60 .
Paper 4, Section II, G
commentLet and let be the vector space of complex homogeneous polynomials of degree in two variables.
(a) Prove that has the structure of an irreducible representation for .
(b) State and prove the Clebsch-Gordan theorem.
(c) Quoting without proof any properties of symmetric and exterior powers which you need, decompose and into irreducible -spaces.
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentBy considering the singularity at , show that any injective analytic map has the form for some and .
State the Riemann-Hurwitz formula for a non-constant analytic map of compact Riemann surfaces and , explaining each term that appears.
Suppose is analytic of degree 2. Show that there exist Möbius transformations and such that
is the map given by .
Paper 2, Section II, F
commentLet be a non-constant elliptic function with respect to a lattice . Let be a fundamental parallelogram whose boundary contains no zeros or poles of . Show that the number of zeros of in is the same as the number of poles of in , both counted with multiplicities.
Suppose additionally that is even. Show that there exists a rational function such that , where is the Weierstrass -function.
Suppose is a non-constant elliptic function with respect to a lattice , and is a meromorphic antiderivative of , so that . Is it necessarily true that is an elliptic function? Justify your answer.
[You may use standard properties of the Weierstrass -function throughout.]
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentLet be a positive even integer. Consider the subspace of given by the equation , where are coordinates in , and let be the restriction of the projection map to the first factor. Show that has the structure of a Riemann surface in such a way that becomes an analytic map. If denotes projection onto the second factor, show that is also analytic. [You may assume that is connected.]
Find the ramification points and the branch points of both and . Compute the ramification indices at the ramification points.
Assume that, by adding finitely many points, it is possible to compactify to a Riemann surface such that extends to an analytic map . Find the genus of (as a function of ).
Paper 1, Section I, J
commentThe dataset ChickWeights records the weight of a group of chickens fed four different diets at a range of time points. We perform the following regressions in .
(i) Which hypothesis test does the following command perform? State the degrees of freedom, and the conclusion of the test.
(ii) Define a diagnostic plot that might suggest the logarithmic transformation of the response in fit2.
(iii) Define the dashed line in the following plot, generated with the command plot(fit3). What does it tell us about the data point 579 ?
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentThe Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club organises a tournament in which every match consists of 11 games, all of which are played. The player who wins 6 or more games is declared the winner.
For players and , let be the total number of games they play against each other, and let be the number of these games won by player . Let and be the corresponding number of matches.
A statistician analysed the tournament data using a Binomial Generalised Linear Model (GLM) with outcome . The probability that wins a game against is modelled by
with an appropriate corner point constraint. You are asked to re-analyse the data, but the game-level results have been lost and you only know which player won each match.
We define a new GLM for the outcomes with and , where the are defined in . That is, is the log-odds that wins a game against , not a match.
Derive the form of the new link function . [You may express your answer in terms of a cumulative distribution function.]
Paper 2, Section I, J
commentA statistician is interested in the power of a -test with level in linear regression; that is, the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis with this test under an alternative with .
(a) State the distribution of the least-squares estimator , and hence state the form of the -test statistic used.
(b) Prove that the power does not depend on the other coefficients for .
Paper 3, Section I, J
commentFor Fisher's method of Iteratively Reweighted Least-Squares and Newton-Raphson optimisation of the log-likelihood, the vector of parameters is updated using an iteration
for a specific function . How is defined in each method?
Prove that they are identical in a Generalised Linear Model with the canonical link function.
Paper 4, Section I, J
commentA Cambridge scientist is testing approaches to slow the spread of a species of moth in certain trees. Two groups of 30 trees were treated with different organic pesticides, and a third group of 30 trees was kept under control conditions. At the end of the summer the trees are classified according to the level of leaf damage, obtaining the following contingency table.
Which of the following Generalised Linear Model fitting commands is appropriate for these data? Why? Describe the model being fit.
Paper 4, Section II, J
commentThe dataset diesel records the number of diesel cars which go through a block of Hills Road in 6 disjoint periods of 30 minutes, between 8AM and 11AM. The measurements are repeated each day for 10 days. Answer the following questions based on the code below, which is shown with partial output.
(a) Can we reject the model fit. 1 at a level? Justify your answer.
(b) What is the difference between the deviance of the models fit. 2 and fit.3?
(c) Which of fit. 2 and fit. 3 would you use to perform variable selection by backward stepwise selection? Why?
(d) How does the final plot differ from what you expect under the model in fit.2? Provide a possible explanation and suggest a better model.
head (diesel)
period num.cars day
fit. glm(num.cars period, data=diesel, family=poisson)
summary (fit.1)
Deviance Residuals:
Min 1Q Median 3Q Max
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error value
(Intercept)
period
Signif. codes: 0 ? ? ? ? ?.? ? ? 1
(Dispersion parameter for poisson family taken to be 1)
Null deviance: on 59 degrees of freedom
Residual deviance: on 58 degrees of freedom
AIC:
diesel$period.factor = factor(diesel$period)
fit. glm (num.cars period.factor, data=diesel, family=poisson)
(fit.2)
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error z value
Part II, List of Questions
[TURN OVER
Paper 1, Section II, D
commentExplain what is meant by the microcanonical ensemble for a quantum system. Sketch how to derive the probability distribution for the canonical ensemble from the microcanonical ensemble. Under what physical conditions should each type of ensemble be used?
A paramagnetic solid contains atoms with magnetic moment , where is a positive constant and is the intrinsic angular momentum of the atom. In an applied magnetic field , the energy of an atom is . Consider . Each atom has total angular momentum , so the possible values of are .
Show that the partition function for a single atom is
where .
Compute the average magnetic moment of the atom. Sketch for , and on the same graph.
The total magnetization is , where is the number of atoms. The magnetic susceptibility is defined by
Show that the solid obeys Curie's law at high temperatures. Compute the susceptibility at low temperatures and give a physical explanation for the result.
Paper 2, Section II, 34D
comment(a) The entropy of a thermodynamic ensemble is defined by the formula
where is the Boltzmann constant. Explain what is meant by in this formula. Write down an expression for in the grand canonical ensemble, defining any variables you need. Hence show that the entropy is related to the grand canonical partition function by
(b) Consider a gas of non-interacting fermions with single-particle energy levels .
(i) Show that the grand canonical partition function is given by
(ii) Assume that the energy levels are continuous with density of states , where and are positive constants. Prove that
and give expressions for the constant and the function .
(iii) The gas is isolated and undergoes a reversible adiabatic change. By considering the ratio , prove that remains constant. Deduce that and remain constant in this process, where and are constants whose values you should determine.
Paper 3, Section II, D
comment(a) Describe the Carnot cycle using plots in the -plane and the -plane. In which steps of the cycle is heat absorbed or emitted by the gas? In which steps is work done on, or by, the gas?
(b) An ideal monatomic gas undergoes a reversible cycle described by a triangle in the -plane with vertices at the points with coordinates and respectively. The cycle is traversed in the order .
(i) Write down the equation of state and an expression for the internal energy of the gas.
(ii) Derive an expression relating to and . Use your expression to calculate the heat supplied to, or emitted by, the gas along and .
(iii) Show that heat is supplied to the gas along part of the line , and is emitted by the gas along the other part of the line.
(iv) Calculate the efficiency where is the total work done by the cycle and is the total heat supplied.
Paper 4, Section II, D
commentThe van der Waals equation of state is
where is the pressure, is the volume divided by the number of particles, is the temperature, is Boltzmann's constant and are positive constants.
(i) Prove that the Gibbs free energy satisfies . Hence obtain an expression for and use it to explain the Maxwell construction for determining the pressure at which the gas and liquid phases can coexist at a given temperature.
(ii) Explain what is meant by the critical point and determine the values corresponding to this point.
(iii) By defining and , derive the law of corresponding states:
(iv) To investigate the behaviour near the critical point, let and , where and are small. Expand to cubic order in and hence show that
At fixed small , let and be the values of corresponding to the liquid and gas phases on the co-existence curve. By changing the integration variable from to , use the Maxwell construction to show that . Deduce that, as the critical point is approached along the co-existence curve,
Paper 1, Section II, J
comment(a) What does it mean to say that is a martingale?
(b) Let be independent random variables on with and . Further, let
where
Show that is a martingale with respect to the natural filtration .
(c) State and prove the optional stopping theorem for a bounded stopping time .
Paper 2, Section II,
comment(a) What is a Brownian motion?
(b) Let be a Brownian motion. Show that the process , , is also a Brownian motion.
(c) Let . Show that for all (i.e. and have the same laws). Conclude that a.s.
(d) Show that .
Paper 3, Section II, J
comment(a) State the fundamental theorem of asset pricing for a multi-period model.
Consider a market model in which there is no arbitrage, the prices for all European put and call options are already known and there is a riskless asset with for some . The holder of a so-called 'chooser option' has the right to choose at a preassigned time between a European call and a European put option on the same asset , both with the same strike price and the same maturity . [We assume that at time the holder will take the option having the higher price at that time.]
(b) Show that the payoff function of the chooser option is given by
(c) Show that the price of the chooser option is given by
where and denote the price of a European call and put option, respectively, with strike and maturity .
Paper 4, Section II, J
comment(a) Describe the (Cox-Ross-Rubinstein) binomial model. When is the model arbitragefree? How is the equivalent martingale measure characterised in this case?
(b) What is the price and the hedging strategy for any given contingent claim in the binomial model?
(c) For any fixed and , the payoff function of a forward-start-option is given by
Find a formula for the price of the forward-start-option in the binomial model.
Paper 1, Section I, 2F
commentState Liouville's theorem on the approximation of algebraic numbers by rationals.
Suppose that we have a sequence with . State and prove a necessary and sufficient condition on the for
to be transcendental.
Paper 2, Section I, F
commentAre the following statements true or false? Give reasons, quoting any theorems that you need.
(i) There is a sequence of polynomials with uniformly on as .
(ii) If is continuous, then there is a sequence of polynomials with for each as .
(iii) If is continuous with as , then there is a sequence of polynomials with uniformly on as .
Paper 2, Section II, F
commentState and prove Baire's category theorem for complete metric spaces. Give an example to show that it may fail if the metric space is not complete.
Let be a sequence of continuous functions such that converges for all . Show that if is fixed we can find an and a non-empty open interval such that for all and all .
Let be defined by
Show that we cannot find continuous functions with for each as
Define a sequence of continuous functions and a discontinuous function with for each as .
Paper 3, Section I, 2F
comment(a) Suppose that is a continuous function such that there exists a with for all . By constructing a suitable map from the closed unit disc into itself, show that there exists a with .
(b) Show that is surjective.
(c) Show that the result of part (b) may be false if we drop the condition that is continuous.
Paper 4, Section I, F
commentIf , set
where is an integer and . Let .
If is also irrational, write down the continued fraction expansion in terms of where .
Let be a random variable taking values in with probability density function
Show that has the same distribution as .
Paper 4, Section II, 11F
comment(a) Suppose that is continuous with and for all . Show that if (with real) we can define a continuous function such that and . Hence define the winding number of around 0 .
(b) Show that can take any integer value.
(c) If and satisfy the requirements of the definition, and , show that
(d) If and satisfy the requirements of the definition and for all , show that
(e) State and prove a theorem that says that winding number is unchanged under an appropriate homotopy.
Paper 1, Section II, B
commentDerive the wave equation governing the pressure disturbance , for linearised, constant entropy sound waves in a compressible inviscid fluid of density and sound speed , which is otherwise at rest.
Consider a harmonic acoustic plane wave with wavevector and unit-amplitude pressure disturbance. Determine the resulting velocity field .
Consider such an acoustic wave incident from on a thin elastic plate at . The regions and are occupied by gases with densities and , respectively, and sound speeds and , respectively. The kinematic boundary conditions at the plate are those appropriate for an inviscid fluid, and the (linearised) dynamic boundary condition is
where and are the mass and bending moment per unit area of the plate, and (with ) is its perturbed position. Find the amplitudes of the reflected and transmitted pressure perturbations, expressing your answers in terms of the dimensionless parameter
(i) If and , under what condition is the incident wave perfectly transmitted?
(ii) If , comment on the reflection coefficient, and show that waves incident at a sufficiently large angle are reflected as if from a pressure-release surface (i.e. an interface where ), no matter how large the plate mass and bending moment may be.
Paper 2, Section II, B
commentShow that, for a one-dimensional flow of a perfect gas (with ) at constant entropy, the Riemann invariants are constant along characteristics
Define a simple wave. Show that in a right-propagating simple wave
In some circumstances, dissipative effects may be modelled by
where is a positive constant. Suppose also that is prescribed at for all , say . Demonstrate that, unless a shock develops, a solution of the form
can be found, where, for each and is determined implicitly as the solution of the equation
Deduce that, despite the presence of dissipative effects, a shock will still form at some unless , where
Paper 3, Section II, B
commentWaves propagating in a slowly-varying medium satisfy the local dispersion relation in the standard notation. Derive the ray-tracing equations
governing the evolution of a wave packet specified by , where . A formal justification is not required, but the meaning of the notation should be carefully explained.
The dispersion relation for two-dimensional, small amplitude, internal waves of wavenumber , relative to Cartesian coordinates with vertical, propagating in an inviscid, incompressible, stratified fluid that would otherwise be at rest, is given by
where is the Brunt-Väisälä frequency and where you may assume that and . Derive the modified dispersion relation if the fluid is not at rest, and instead has a slowly-varying mean flow .
In the case that and is constant, show that a disturbance with wavenumber generated at will propagate upwards but cannot go higher than a critical level , where is equal to the apparent wave speed in the -direction. Find expressions for the vertical wave number as from below, and show that it takes an infinite time for the wave to reach the critical level.
Paper 4, Section II, 38B
commentConsider the Rossby-wave equation
where and are real constants. Find and sketch the dispersion relation for waves with wavenumber and frequency . Find and sketch the phase velocity and the group velocity , and identify in which direction(s) the wave crests travel, and the corresponding direction(s) of the group velocity.
Write down the solution with initial value
where is real and . Use the method of stationary phase to obtain leading-order approximations to for large , with having the constant value , for
(i) ,
(ii) ,
where the solutions for the stationary points should be left in implicit form. [It is helpful to note that .]
Briefly discuss the nature of the solution for and . [Detailed calculations are not required.]
[Hint: You may assume that
for