Part II, 2020
Part II, 2020
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Paper 1, Section II, F
commentLet be an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. Prove that an affine variety is irreducible if and only if the associated ideal of polynomials that vanish on is prime.
Prove that the variety is irreducible.
State what it means for an affine variety over to be smooth and determine whether or not is smooth.
Paper 2, Section II, F
commentLet be an algebraically closed field of characteristic not equal to 2 and let be a nonsingular quadric surface.
(a) Prove that is birational to .
(b) Prove that there exists a pair of disjoint lines on .
(c) Prove that the affine variety does not contain any lines.
Paper 3, Section II, F
comment(i) Suppose is an affine equation whose projective completion is a smooth projective curve. Give a basis for the vector space of holomorphic differential forms on this curve. [You are not required to prove your assertion.]
Let be the plane curve given by the vanishing of the polynomial
over the complex numbers.
(ii) Prove that is nonsingular.
(iii) Let be a line in and define to be the divisor . Prove that is a canonical divisor on .
(iv) Calculate the minimum degree such that there exists a non-constant map
of degree .
[You may use any results from the lectures provided that they are stated clearly.]
Paper 4, Section II, F
commentLet be a basis for the homogeneous polynomials of degree in variables and . Then the image of the given by
is called a rational normal curve.
Let be a collection of points in general linear position in . Prove that there exists a unique rational normal curve in passing through these points.
Choose a basis of homogeneous polynomials of degree 3 as above, and give generators for the homogeneous ideal of the corresponding rational normal curve.
Paper 1, Section II,
commentLet be the map given by
where is identified with the unit circle in . [You may take as given that is a covering map.]
(a) Using the covering map , show that is isomorphic to as a group, where .
(b) Let denote the group of matrices with integer entries such that . If , we obtain a linear transformation . Show that this linear transformation induces a homeomorphism with and such that agrees with as a map .
(c) Let for be connected covering maps of degree 2 . Show that there exist homeomorphisms and so that the diagram
is commutative.
Paper 2, Section II, F
comment(a) Let be a map of spaces. We define the mapping cylinder of to be the space
with . Show carefully that the canonical inclusion is a homotopy equivalence.
(b) Using the Seifert-van Kampen theorem, show that if is path-connected and is a map, and for some point , then
Use this fact to construct a connected space with
(c) Using a covering space of , give explicit generators of a subgroup of isomorphic to . Here denotes the free group on generators.
Paper 3, Section II, 20F
commentLet be a simplicial complex with four vertices with simplices , and and their faces.
(a) Draw a picture of , labelling the vertices.
(b) Using the definition of homology, calculate for all .
(c) Let be the subcomplex of consisting of the vertices and the 1 simplices . Let be the inclusion. Construct a simplicial such that the topological realisation of is a homotopy inverse to . Construct an explicit chain homotopy between and , and verify that is a chain homotopy.
Paper 4 , Section II, 21F
commentIn this question, you may assume all spaces involved are triangulable.
(a) (i) State and prove the Mayer-Vietoris theorem. [You may assume the theorem that states that a short exact sequence of chain complexes gives rise to a long exact sequence of homology groups.]
(ii) Use Mayer-Vietoris to calculate the homology groups of an oriented surface of genus .
(b) Let be an oriented surface of genus , and let be a collection of mutually disjoint closed subsets of with each homeomorphic to a two-dimensional disk. Let denote the interior of , homeomorphic to an open two-dimensional disk, and let
Show that
(c) Let be the surface given in (b) when and . Let be a map. Does there exist a map such that is homotopic to the identity map? Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section II, I
commentLet be equipped with the -algebra of Lebesgue measurable sets, and Lebesgue measure.
(a) Given , define the convolution , and show that it is a bounded, continuous function. [You may use without proof continuity of translation on for
Suppose is a measurable set with where denotes the Lebesgue measure of . By considering the convolution of and , or otherwise, show that the set contains an open neighbourhood of 0 . Does this still hold if ?
(b) Suppose that is a measurable function satisfying
Let . Show that for any :
(i) ,
(ii) for all , where for and denotes the set .
Show that is continuous at 0 and hence deduce that is continuous everywhere.
Paper 3, Section II, 22I
commentLet be a Banach space.
(a) Define the dual space , giving an expression for for . If for some , identify giving an expression for a general element of . [You need not prove your assertion.]
(b) For a sequence with , what is meant by: (i) , (ii) (iii) ? Show that (i) (ii) (iii). Find a sequence with such that, for some :
(c) For , let be the map . Show that may be extended to a continuous linear map , and deduce that . For which is reflexive? [You may use without proof the Hahn-Banach theorem].
Paper 4, Section II, 23I
comment(a) Define the Sobolev space for .
(b) Let be a non-negative integer and let . Show that if then there exists with almost everywhere.
(c) Show that if for some , there exists a unique which solves:
in a distributional sense. Prove that there exists a constant , independent of , such that:
For which will be a classical solution?
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentConsider the quantum mechanical scattering of a particle of mass in one dimension off a parity-symmetric potential, . State the constraints imposed by parity, unitarity and their combination on the components of the -matrix in the parity basis,
For the specific potential
show that
For , derive the condition for the existence of an odd-parity bound state. For and to leading order in , show that an odd-parity resonance exists and discuss how it evolves in time.
Paper 2, Section II,
commenta) Consider a particle moving in one dimension subject to a periodic potential, . Define the Brillouin zone. State and prove Bloch's theorem.
b) Consider now the following periodic potential
with positive constant .
i) For very small , use the nearly-free electron model to compute explicitly the lowest-energy band gap to leading order in degenerate perturbation theory.
ii) For very large , the electron is localised very close to a minimum of the potential. Estimate the two lowest energies for such localised eigenstates and use the tight-binding model to estimate the lowest-energy band gap.
Paper 3, Section II, C
comment(a) For the quantum scattering of a beam of particles in three dimensions off a spherically symmetric potential that vanishes at large , discuss the boundary conditions satisfied by the wavefunction and define the scattering amplitude . Assuming the asymptotic form
state the constraints on imposed by the unitarity of the -matrix and define the phase shifts .
(b) For , consider the specific potential
(i) Show that the s-wave phase shift obeys
where .
(ii) Compute the scattering length and find for which values of it diverges. Discuss briefly the physical interpretation of the divergences. [Hint: you may find this trigonometric identity useful
Paper 4, Section II,
comment(a) For a particle of charge moving in an electromagnetic field with vector potential and scalar potential , write down the classical Hamiltonian and the equations of motion.
(b) Consider the vector and scalar potentials
(i) Solve the equations of motion. Define and compute the cyclotron frequency .
(ii) Write down the quantum Hamiltonian of the system in terms of the angular momentum operator
Show that the states
for any function , are energy eigenstates and compute their energy. Define Landau levels and discuss this result in relation to them.
(iii) Show that for , the wavefunctions in ( ) are eigenstates of angular momentum and compute the corresponding eigenvalue. These wavefunctions peak in a ring around the origin. Estimate its radius. Using these two facts or otherwise, estimate the degeneracy of Landau levels.
Paper 1, Section II, 28K
comment(a) What is meant by a birth process with strictly positive rates Explain what is meant by saying that is non-explosive.
(b) Show that is non-explosive if and only if
(c) Suppose , and where . Show that
Paper 2, Section II, 27K
comment(i) Let be a Markov chain in continuous time on the integers with generator . Define the corresponding jump chain .
Define the terms irreducibility and recurrence for . If is irreducible, show that is recurrent if and only if is recurrent.
(ii) Suppose
Show that is transient, find an invariant distribution, and show that is explosive. [Any general results may be used without proof but should be stated clearly.]
Paper 3, Section II, 27K
commentDefine a renewal-reward process, and state the renewal-reward theorem.
A machine is repaired at time . After any repair, it functions without intervention for a time that is exponentially distributed with parameter , at which point it breaks down (assume the usual independence). Following any repair at time , say, it is inspected at times , and instantly repaired if found to be broken (the inspection schedule is then restarted). Find the long run proportion of time that is working. [You may express your answer in terms of an integral.]
Paper 4, Section II, K
comment(i) Explain the notation in the context of queueing theory. [In the following, you may use without proof the fact that is the invariant distribution of such a queue when .
(ii) In a shop queue, some customers rejoin the queue after having been served. Let and . Consider a queue subject to the modification that, on completion of service, each customer leaves the shop with probability , or rejoins the shop queue with probability . Different customers behave independently of one another, and all service times are independent random variables.
Find the distribution of the total time a given customer spends being served by the server. Hence show that equilibrium is possible if , and find the invariant distribution of the queue-length in this case.
(iii) Show that, in equilibrium, the departure process is Poissonian, whereas, assuming the rejoining customers go to the end of the queue, the process of customers arriving at the queue (including the rejoining ones) is not Poissonian.
Paper 2, Section II, D
comment(a) Let and . Let be a sequence of (real) functions that are nonzero for all with , and let be a sequence of nonzero real numbers. For every , the function satisfies
(i) Show that , for all ; i.e., is an asymptotic sequence.
(ii) Show that for any , the functions are linearly independent on their domain of definition.
(b) Let
(i) Find an asymptotic expansion (not necessarily a power series) of , as .
(ii) Find the first four terms of the expansion of into an asymptotic power series of , that is, with error as .
Paper 3, Section II, D
comment(a) Find the leading order term of the asymptotic expansion, as , of the integral
(b) Find the first two leading nonzero terms of the asymptotic expansion, as , of the integral
Paper 4, Section II, A
commentConsider the differential equation
(i) Classify what type of regularity/singularity equation has at .
(ii) Find a transformation that maps equation () to an equation of the form
(iii) Find the leading-order term of the asymptotic expansions of the solutions of equation , as , using the Liouville-Green method.
(iv) Derive the leading-order term of the asymptotic expansion of the solutions of (). Check that one of them is an exact solution for .
Paper 1, Section I,
commentDefine an alphabet , a word over and a language over .
What is a regular expression and how does this give rise to a language
Given any alphabet , show that there exist languages over which are not equal to for any regular expression . [You are not required to exhibit a specific .]
Paper 1, Section II, F
comment(a) Define a register machine, a sequence of instructions for a register machine and a partial computable function. How do we encode a register machine?
(b) What is a partial recursive function? Show that a partial computable function is partial recursive. [You may assume that for a given machine with a given number of inputs, the function outputting its state in terms of the inputs and the time is recursive.]
(c) (i) Let be the partial function defined as follows: if codes a register machine and the ensuing partial function is defined at , set . Otherwise set . Is a partial computable function?
(ii) Let be the partial function defined as follows: if codes a register machine and the ensuing partial function is defined at , set . Otherwise, set if is odd and let be undefined if is even. Is a partial computable function?
Paper 2, Section I, F
commentAssuming the definition of a partial recursive function from to , what is a recursive subset of ? What is a recursively enumerable subset of ?
Show that a subset is recursive if and only if and are recursively enumerable.
Are the following subsets of recursive?
(i) codes a program and halts at some stage .
(ii) codes a program and halts within 100 steps .
Paper 3, Section I, F
commentDefine a context-free grammar , a sentence of and the language generated by .
For the alphabet , which of the following languages over are contextfree? (i) ,
(ii) .
[You may assume standard results without proof if clearly stated.]
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentGive the definition of a deterministic finite state automaton and of a regular language.
State and prove the pumping lemma for regular languages.
Let be the subset of consisting of the powers of 2 .
If we write the elements of in base 2 (with no preceding zeros), is a regular language over ?
Now suppose we write the elements of in base 10 (again with no preceding zeros). Show that is not a regular language over . [Hint: Give a proof by contradiction; use the above lemma to obtain a sequence of powers of 2, then consider for and a suitable fixed d.]
Paper 4, Section I,
commentDefine what it means for a context-free grammar (CFG) to be in Chomsky normal form .
Describe without proof each stage in the process of converting a CFG into an equivalent CFG which is in CNF. For each of these stages, when are the nonterminals left unchanged? What about the terminals and the generated language ?
Give an example of a CFG whose generated language is infinite and equal to .
Paper 1, Section I, B
commentA linear molecule is modelled as four equal masses connected by three equal springs. Using the Cartesian coordinates of the centres of the four masses, and neglecting any forces other than those due to the springs, write down the Lagrangian of the system describing longitudinal motions of the molecule.
Rewrite and simplify the Lagrangian in terms of the generalized coordinates
Deduce Lagrange's equations for . Hence find the normal modes of the system and their angular frequencies, treating separately the symmetric and antisymmetric modes of oscillation.
Paper 2, Section I, B
commentA particle of mass has position vector in a frame of reference that rotates with angular velocity . The particle moves under the gravitational influence of masses that are fixed in the rotating frame. Explain why the Lagrangian of the particle is of the form
Show that Lagrange's equations of motion are equivalent to
Identify the canonical momentum conjugate to . Obtain the Hamiltonian and Hamilton's equations for this system.
Paper 2, Section II, B
commentA symmetric top of mass rotates about a fixed point that is a distance from the centre of mass along the axis of symmetry; its principal moments of inertia about the fixed point are and . The Lagrangian of the top is
(i) Draw a diagram explaining the meaning of the Euler angles and .
(ii) Derive expressions for the three integrals of motion and .
(iii) Show that the nutational motion is governed by the equation
and derive expressions for the effective potential and the modified energy in terms of and .
(iv) Suppose that
where is a small positive number. By expanding to second order in and , show that there is a stable equilibrium solution with , provided that . Determine the equilibrium value of and the precession rate , to the same level of approximation.
Paper 3, Section I, B
commentA particle of mass experiences a repulsive central force of magnitude , where is its distance from the origin. Write down the Hamiltonian of the system.
The Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector for this system is defined by
where is the angular momentum and is the radial unit vector. Show that
where is the Poisson bracket. What are the integrals of motion of the system? Show that the polar equation of the orbit can be written as
where and are non-negative constants.
Paper 4, Section I, B
commentDerive expressions for the angular momentum and kinetic energy of a rigid body in terms of its mass , the position of its centre of mass, its inertia tensor (which should be defined) about its centre of mass, and its angular velocity .
A spherical planet of mass and radius has density proportional to . Given that and , evaluate the inertia tensor of the planet in terms of and .
Paper 4, Section II, B
comment(a) Explain how the Hamiltonian of a system can be obtained from its Lagrangian . Deduce that the action can be written as
Show that Hamilton's equations are obtained if the action, computed between fixed initial and final configurations and , is minimized with respect to independent variations of and .
(b) Let be a new set of coordinates on the same phase space. If the old and new coordinates are related by a type-2 generating function such that
deduce that the canonical form of Hamilton's equations applies in the new coordinates, but with a new Hamiltonian given by
(c) For each of the Hamiltonians (i) , (ii) ,
express the general solution at time in terms of the initial values given by at time . In each case, show that the transformation from to is canonical for all values of , and find the corresponding generating function explicitly.
Paper 1, Section I, I
comment(a) Briefly describe the methods of Shannon-Fano and of Huffman for the construction of prefix-free binary codes.
(b) In this part you are given that , and .
Let . For , suppose that the probability of choosing is .
(i) Find a Shannon-Fano code for this system and the expected word length.
(ii) Find a Huffman code for this system and the expected word length.
(iii) Verify that Shannon's noiseless coding theorem is satisfied in each case.
Paper 1, Section II, I
comment(a) What does it mean to say that a binary code has length , size and minimum distance d?
Let be the largest value of for which there exists a binary -code.
(i) Show that .
(ii) Suppose that . Show that if a binary -code exists, then a binary -code exists. Deduce that .
(iii) Suppose that . Show that .
(b) (i) For integers and with , show that
For the remainder of this question, suppose that is a binary -code. For codewords of length , we define to be the word with addition modulo
(ii) Explain why the Hamming distance is the number of 1 s in .
(iii) Now we construct an array whose rows are all the words for pairs of distinct codewords . Show that the number of in is at most
Show also that the number of in is at least .
(iv) Using the inequalities derived in part(b) (iii), deduce that if is even and then
Paper 2, Section I, I
comment(a) Define the information capacity of a discrete memoryless channel (DMC).
(b) Consider a DMC where there are two input symbols, and , and three output symbols, and . Suppose each input symbol is left intact with probability , and transformed into a with probability .
(i) Write down the channel matrix, and calculate the information capacity.
(ii) Now suppose the output is further processed by someone who cannot distinguish between and , so that the channel matrix becomes
Calculate the new information capacity.
Paper 2, Section II, I
commentLet be the Hamming code of weight 3 , where . Let be the parity-check matrix of . Let be the number of codewords of weight in .
(i) Show that for any two columns and of there exists a unique third column such that . Deduce that .
(ii) Show that contains a codeword of weight .
(iii) Find formulae for and . Justify your answer in each case.
Paper 3, Section I, I
commentLet and be very large positive integers with a prime and . The Chair of the Committee is able to inscribe pairs of very large integers on discs. The Chair wishes to inscribe a collection of discs in such a way that any Committee member who acquires of the discs and knows the prime can deduce the integer , but owning discs will give no information whatsoever. What strategy should the Chair follow?
[You may use without proof standard properties of the determinant of the Vandermonde matrix.]
Paper 4, Section I, I
comment(a) What does it mean to say that a cipher has perfect secrecy? Show that if a cipher has perfect secrecy then there must be at least as many possible keys as there are possible plaintext messages. What is a one-time pad? Show that a one-time pad has perfect secrecy.
(b) I encrypt a binary sequence using a one-time pad with key sequence I transmit to you. Then, by mistake, I also transmit to you. Assuming that you know I have made this error, and that my message makes sense, how would you go about finding my message? Can you now decipher other messages sent using the same part of the key sequence? Briefly justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section I, D
commentThe Friedmann equation is
Briefly explain the meaning of and .
Derive the Raychaudhuri equation,
where is the pressure, stating clearly any results that are required.
Assume that the strong energy condition holds. Show that there was necessarily a Big Bang singularity at time such that
where and is the time today.
Paper 1, Section II, D
commentA fluid with pressure sits in a volume . The change in energy due to a change in volume is given by . Use this in a cosmological context to derive the continuity equation,
with the energy density, the Hubble parameter, and the scale factor.
In a flat universe, the Friedmann equation is given by
Given a universe dominated by a fluid with equation of state , where is a constant, determine how the scale factor evolves.
Define conformal time . Assume that the early universe consists of two fluids: radiation with and a network of cosmic strings with . Show that the Friedmann equation can be written as
where is the energy density in radiation, and is the scale factor, both evaluated at radiation-string equality. Here, is a constant that you should determine. Find the solution .
Paper 2, Section I, D
commentDuring inflation, the expansion of the universe is governed by the Friedmann equation,
and the equation of motion for the inflaton field ,
The slow-roll conditions are and . Under these assumptions, solve for and for the potentials:
(i) and
(ii) .
Paper 3, Section I, D
commentAt temperature , with , the distribution of ultra-relativistic particles with momentum is given by
where the minus sign is for bosons and the plus for fermions, and with .
Show that the total number of fermions, , is related to the total number of bosons, , by .
Show that the total energy density of fermions, , is related to the total energy density of bosons, , by .
Paper 3, Section II, D
commentIn an expanding spacetime, the density contrast satisfies the linearised equation
where is the scale factor, is the Hubble parameter, is a constant, and is the Jeans wavenumber, defined by
with the background, homogeneous energy density.
(i) Solve for in a static universe, with and and constant. Identify two regimes: one in which sound waves propagate, and one in which there is an instability.
(ii) In a matter-dominated universe with , use the Friedmann equation to find the growing and decaying long-wavelength modes of as a function of .
(iii) Assuming in equation , find the growth of matter perturbations in a radiation-dominated universe and find the growth of matter perturbations in a curvature-dominated universe.
Paper 4 , Section I, D
commentAt temperature and chemical potential , the number density of a non-relativistic particle species with mass is given by
where is the number of degrees of freedom of this particle.
At recombination, electrons and protons combine to form hydrogen. Use the result above to derive the Saha equation
where is the number density of hydrogen atoms, the number density of electrons, the mass of the electron and the binding energy of hydrogen. State any assumptions that you use in this derivation.
Paper 1, Section II, I
comment(a) Let be a manifold. Give the definition of the tangent space of at a point .
(b) Show that defines a submanifold of and identify explicitly its tangent space for any .
(c) Consider the matrix group consisting of all matrices satisfying
where is the diagonal matrix .
(i) Show that forms a group under matrix multiplication, i.e. it is closed under multiplication and every element in has an inverse in .
(ii) Show that defines a 6-dimensional manifold. Identify the tangent space for any as a set where ranges over a linear subspace which you should identify explicitly.
(iii) Let be as defined in (b) above. Show that defined as the set of all such that for all is both a subgroup and a submanifold of full dimension.
[You may use without proof standard theorems from the course concerning regular values and transversality.]
Paper 2, Section II, I
comment(a) State the fundamental theorem for regular curves in .
(b) Let be a regular curve, parameterised by arc length, such that its image is a one-dimensional submanifold. Suppose that the set is preserved by a nontrivial proper Euclidean motion .
Show that there exists corresponding to such that for all , where the choice of is independent of . Show also that the curvature and torsion of satisfy
with equation (2) valid only for such that . In the case where the sign is and , show that is a straight line.
(c) Give an explicit example of a curve satisfying the requirements of (b) such that neither of and is a constant function, and such that the curve is closed, i.e. such that for some and all . [Here a drawing would suffice.]
(d) Suppose now that is an embedded regular curve parameterised by arc length . Suppose further that for all and that and satisfy (1) and (2) for some , where the choice is independent of , and where in the case of + sign. Show that there exists a nontrivial proper Euclidean motion such that the set is preserved by . [You may use the theorem of part (a) without proof.]
Paper 3, Section II, I
comment(a) Show that for a compact regular surface , there exists a point such that , where denotes the Gaussian curvature. Show that if is contained in a closed ball of radius in , then there is a point such that .
(b) For a regular surface , give the definition of a geodesic polar coordinate system at a point . Show that in such a coordinate system, , and . [You may use without proof standard properties of the exponential map provided you state them clearly.]
(c) Let be a regular surface. Show that if , then any geodesic polar coordinate ball of radius around has area satisfying
[You may use without proof the identity .]
(d) Let be a regular surface, and now suppose for some constant . Given any constant , show that there exists , depending only on and , so that if is any geodesic polar coordinate ball of radius , then
[Hint: For any fixed , consider the function , for all . Derive the relation and show for an appropriate range of The following variant of Wirtinger's inequality may be useful and can be assumed without proof: if is a function on vanishing at 0 , then .]
Paper 4, Section II, I
comment(a) State the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for compact regular surfaces without boundary. Identify all expressions occurring in any formulae.
(b) Let be a compact regular surface without boundary and suppose that its Gaussian curvature for all . Show that is diffeomorphic to the sphere.
Let be a sequence of compact regular surfaces in and let denote the Gaussian curvature of at . Suppose that
(c) Give an example to show that it does not follow that for all sufficiently large the surface is diffeomorphic to the sphere.
(d) Now assume, in addition to , that all of the following conditions hold:
(1) There exists a constant such that for all is contained in a ball of radius around the origin.
(2) There exists a constant such that for all .
(3) There exists a constant such that for all , all points admit a geodesic polar coordinate system centred at of radius at least .
(4) There exists a constant such that on all such geodesic polar neighbourhoods, for all , where denotes a geodesic polar coordinate.
(i) Show that for all sufficiently large , the surface is diffeomorphic to the sphere. [Hint: It may be useful to identify a geodesic polar ball in each for which is bounded below by a positive constant independent of .]
(ii) Explain how your example from (c) fails to satisfy one or more of these extra conditions (1)-(4).
[You may use without proof the standard computations for geodesic polar coordinates: , and
Paper 1, Section II, 32E
comment(i) For the dynamical system
sketch the bifurcation diagram in the plane for the three cases and . Describe the bifurcation points that occur in each case.
(ii) For the case when only, confirm the types of bifurcation by finding the system to leading order near each of the bifurcations.
(iii) Explore the structural stability of these bifurcations by adding a small positive constant to the right-hand side of and by sketching the bifurcation diagrams, for the three cases and . Which of the original bifurcations are structurally stable?
Paper 2, Section II, E
comment(a) State and prove Dulac's criterion. State clearly the Poincaré-Bendixson theorem.
(b) For and , consider the dynamical system
(i) Use Dulac's criterion to find a range of for which this system does not have any periodic orbit.
(ii) Find a suitable such that trajectories enter the disc and do not leave it.
(iii) Given that the system has no fixed points apart from the origin for , give a range of for which there will exist at least one periodic orbit.
Paper 3, Section II, E
comment(a) A dynamical system has a fixed point at the origin. Define the terms asymptotic stability, Lyapunov function and domain of stability of the fixed point . State and prove Lyapunov's first theorem and state (without proof) La Salle's invariance principle.
(b) Consider the system
(i) Show that trajectories cannot leave the square . Show also that there are no fixed points in other than the origin. Is this enough to deduce that is in the domain of stability of the origin?
(ii) Construct a Lyapunov function of the form . Deduce that the origin is asymptotically stable.
(iii) Find the largest rectangle of the form on which is a strict Lyapunov function. Is this enough to deduce that this region is in the domain of stability of the origin?
(iv) Purely from using the Lyapunov function , what is the most that can be deduced about the domain of stability of the origin?
Paper 4, Section II, E
comment(a) Let be a continuous map defined on an interval . Define what it means (i) for to have a horseshoe and (ii) for to be chaotic. [Glendinning's definition should be used throughout this question.]
(b) Consider the map defined on the interval by
with .
(i) Sketch and for a case when and a case when .
(ii) Describe fully the long term dynamics for . What happens for ?
(iii) When does have a horseshoe? When does have a horseshoe?
(iv) For what values of is the map chaotic?
Paper 1, Section II, 37D
commentA relativistic particle of rest mass and electric charge follows a worldline in Minkowski spacetime where is an arbitrary parameter which increases monotonically with the proper time . We consider the motion of the particle in a background electromagnetic field with four-vector potential between initial and final values of the proper time denoted and respectively.
(i) Write down an action for the particle's motion. Explain what is meant by a gauge transformation of the electromagnetic field. How does the action change under a gauge transformation?
(ii) Derive an equation of motion for the particle by considering the variation of the action with respect to the worldline . Setting show that your equation of motion reduces to the Lorentz force law,
where is the particle's four-velocity and is the Maxwell field-strength tensor.
(iii) Working in an inertial frame with spacetime coordinates , consider the case of a constant, homogeneous magnetic field of magnitude , pointing in the -direction, and vanishing electric field. In a gauge where , show that the equation of motion is solved by circular motion in the plane with proper angular frequency .
(iv) Let denote the speed of the particle in this inertial frame with Lorentz factor . Find the radius of the circle as a function of . Setting , evaluate the action for a single period of the particle's motion.
Paper 3, Section II, D
commentThe Maxwell stress tensor of the electromagnetic fields is a two-index Cartesian tensor with components
where , and and denote the Cartesian components of the electric and magnetic fields and respectively.
(i) Consider an electromagnetic field sourced by charge and current densities denoted by and respectively. Using Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law, show that the components of obey the equation
where , for , are the components of a vector field which you should give explicitly in terms of and . Explain the physical interpretation of this equation and of the quantities and .
(ii) A localised source near the origin, , emits electromagnetic radiation. Far from the source, the resulting electric and magnetic fields can be approximated as
where and with and . Here, and is a constant vector.
Calculate the pressure exerted by these fields on a spherical shell of very large radius centred on the origin. [You may assume that and vanish for and that the shell material is absorbant, i.e. no reflected wave is generated.]
Paper 4 , Section II, 36D
comment(a) A dielectric medium exhibits a linear response if the electric displacement and magnetizing field are related to the electric and magnetic fields, and , as
where and are constants characterising the electric and magnetic polarisability of the material respectively. Write down the Maxwell equations obeyed by the fields and in this medium in the absence of free charges or currents.
(b) Two such media with constants and (but the same ) fill the regions and respectively in three-dimensions with Cartesian coordinates .
(i) Starting from Maxwell's equations, derive the appropriate boundary conditions at for a time-independent electric field .
(ii) Consider a candidate solution of Maxwell's equations describing the reflection and transmission of an incident electromagnetic wave of wave vector and angular frequency off the interface at . The electric field is given as,
where and are constant real vectors and denotes the imaginary part of a complex number . Give conditions on the parameters for , such that the above expression for the electric field solves Maxwell's equations for all , together with an appropriate magnetic field which you should determine.
(iii) We now parametrize the incident wave vector as , where and are unit vectors in the - and -directions respectively, and choose the incident polarisation vector to satisfy . By imposing appropriate boundary conditions for at , which you may assume to be the same as those for the time-independent case considered above, determine the Cartesian components of the wavevector as functions of and .
(iv) For find a critical value of the angle of incidence above which there is no real solution for the wavevector . Write down a solution for when and comment on its form.
Paper 1, Section II, 39B
commentA viscous fluid is confined between an inner, impermeable cylinder of radius with centre at and another outer, impermeable cylinder of radius with centre at (so they touch at the origin and both have their axes in the direction). The inner cylinder rotates about its axis with angular velocity and the outer cylinder rotates about its axis with angular velocity . The fluid motion is two-dimensional and slow enough that the Stokes approximation is appropriate.
(i) Show that the boundary of the inner cylinder is described by the relationship
where are the usual polar coordinates centred on . Show also that on this cylinder the boundary condition on the tangential velocity can be written as
where and are the components of the velocity in the and directions respectively. Explain why the boundary condition (where is the streamfunction such that and can be imposed.
(ii) Write down the boundary conditions to be satisfied on the outer cylinder , explaining carefully why can also be imposed on this cylinder as well.
(iii) It is given that the streamfunction is of the form
where and are constants, which satisfies . Using the fact that due to the symmetry of the problem, show that the streamfunction is
where the constant is to be found.
(iv) Sketch the streamline pattern between the cylinders and determine the coordinates of the stagnation point in the flow.
Paper 2, Section II, 38B
commentConsider a two-dimensional flow of a viscous fluid down a plane inclined at an angle to the horizontal. Initially, the fluid, which has a volume , occupies a region with increasing down the slope. At large times the flow becomes thin-layer flow.
(i) Write down the two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations and simplify them using the lubrication approximation. Show that the governing equation for the height of the film, , is
where is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid and is the acceleration due to gravity, being careful to justify why the streamwise pressure gradient has been ignored compared to the gravitational body force.
(ii) Develop a similarity solution to and, using the fact that the volume of fluid is conserved over time, derive an expression for the position and height of the head of the current downstream.
(iii) Fluid is now continuously supplied at . By using scaling analysis, estimate the rate at which fluid would have to be supplied for the head height to asymptote to a constant value at large times.
Paper 3, Section II, 38B
comment(a) Briefly outline the derivation of the boundary layer equation
explaining the significance of the symbols used and what sets the -direction.
(b) Viscous fluid occupies the sector in cylindrical coordinates which is bounded by rigid walls and there is a line sink at the origin of strength with . Assume that vorticity is confined to boundary layers along the rigid walls and .
(i) Find the flow outside the boundary layers and clarify why boundary layers exist at all.
(ii) Show that the boundary layer thickness along the wall is proportional to
(iii) Show that the boundary layer equation admits a similarity solution for the streamfunction of the form
where . You should find the equation and boundary conditions satisfied by .
(iv) Verify that
yields a solution provided the constant has one of two possible values. Which is the likely physical choice?
Paper 4 , Section II, 38B
commentConsider a two-dimensional horizontal vortex sheet of strength in a homogeneous inviscid fluid at height above a horizontal rigid boundary at so that the fluid velocity is
(i) Investigate the linear instability of the sheet by determining the relevant dispersion relation for small, inviscid, irrotational perturbations. For what wavelengths is the sheet unstable?
(ii) Evaluate the temporal growth rate and the wave propagation speed in the limits of both short and long waves. Using these results, sketch how the growth rate varies with the wavenumber.
(iii) Comment briefly on how the introduction of a stable density difference (fluid in is less dense than that in ) and surface tension at the interface would affect the growth rates.
Paper 1, Section I, 7 E
commentThe function , defined by
is analytic for .
(i) Show that .
(ii) Use part (i) to construct an analytic continuation of into Re , except at isolated singular points, which you need to identify.
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentUse the change of variable , to rewrite the equation
where is a real non-zero number, as the hypergeometric equation
where , and and should be determined explicitly.
(i) Show that ( is a Papperitz equation, with 0,1 and as its regular singular points. Hence, write the corresponding Papperitz symbol,
in terms of .
(ii) By solving ( ) directly or otherwise, find the hypergeometric function that is the solution to and is analytic at corresponding to the exponent 0 at , and satisfies ; moreover, write it in terms of and
(iii) By performing a suitable exponential shifting find the second solution, independent of , which corresponds to the exponent , and hence write in terms of and .
Paper 2, Section , E
commentEvaluate
where is the circle traversed in the counter-clockwise direction.
Paper 2, Section II, E
commentA semi-infinite elastic string is initially at rest on the -axis with . The transverse displacement of the string, , is governed by the partial differential equation
where is a positive real constant. For the string is subject to the boundary conditions and as .
(i) Show that the Laplace transform of takes the form
(ii) For , with , find and hence write in terms of and . Obtain by performing the inverse Laplace transform using contour integration. Provide a physical interpretation of the result.
Paper 3, Section I, E
commentThe Weierstrass elliptic function is defined by
where , with non-zero periods such that is not real, and where are integers not both zero.
(i) Show that, in a neighbourhood of ,
where
(ii) Deduce that satisfies
Paper 4, Section I, E
commentThe Hilbert transform of a function is defined by
Calculate the Hilbert transform of , where is a non-zero real constant.
Paper 1, Section II, 18G
comment(a) State and prove the tower law.
(b) Let be a field and let .
(i) Define what it means for an extension to be a splitting field for .
(ii) Suppose is irreducible in , and char . Let be an extension of fields. Show that the roots of in are distinct.
(iii) Let , where is the finite field with elements. Let be a splitting field for . Show that the roots of in are distinct. Show that . Show that if is irreducible, and deg , then divides .
(iv) For each prime , give an example of a field , and a polynomial of degree , so that has at most one root in any extension of , with multiplicity .
Paper 2, Section II, 18G
comment(a) Let be a field and let be the splitting field of a polynomial . Let be a primitive root of unity. Show that is a subgroup of .
(b) Suppose that is a Galois extension of fields with cyclic Galois group generated by an element of order , and that contains a primitive root of unity . Show that an eigenvector for on with eigenvalue generates , that is, . Show that .
(c) Let be a finite group. Define what it means for to be solvable.
Determine whether
(i) (ii)
are solvable.
(d) Let be the field of fractions of the polynomial ring . Let . Show that is not solvable by radicals. [You may use results from the course provided that you state them clearly.]
Paper 3, Section II, 18G
comment(a) Let be a Galois extension of fields, with , the alternating group on 10 elements. Find .
Let be an irreducible polynomial, char . Show that remains irreducible in
(b) Let , where is a primitive root of unity.
Determine all subfields . Which are Galois over ?
For each proper subfield , show that an element in which is not in must be primitive, and give an example of such an element explicitly in terms of for each . [You do not need to justify that your examples are not in .]
Find a primitive element for the extension .
Paper 4, Section II, 18G
comment(a) Let be a field. Define the discriminant of a polynomial , and explain why it is in , carefully stating any theorems you use.
Compute the discriminant of .
(b) Let be a field and let be a quartic polynomial with roots such that .
Define the resolvant cubic of .
Suppose that is a square in . Prove that the resolvant cubic is irreducible if and only if . Determine the possible Galois groups Gal if is reducible.
The resolvant cubic of is . Using this, or otherwise, determine , where . [You may use without proof that is irreducible.]
Paper 1, Section II, 38D
commentLet be a four-dimensional manifold with metric of Lorentzian signature.
The Riemann tensor is defined through its action on three vector fields by
and the Ricci identity is given by
(i) Show that for two arbitrary vector fields , the commutator obeys
(ii) Let be a one-parameter family of affinely parametrized geodesics. Let be the tangent vector to the geodesic const, and be the tangent vector to the curves const . Derive the equation for geodesic deviation,
(iii) Let be a unit timelike vector field that satisfies the geodesic equation at every point of . Define
Show that
(iv) Let denote the geodesic deviation vector, as defined in (ii), of the family of geodesics defined by the vector field . Show that satisfies
(v) Show that
Paper 2, Section II,
commentThe Schwarzschild metric is given by
(i) Show that geodesics in the Schwarzschild spacetime obey the equation
where are constants and the dot denotes differentiation with respect to a suitably chosen affine parameter .
(ii) Consider the following three observers located in one and the same plane in the Schwarzschild spacetime which also passes through the centre of the black hole:
Observer is on board a spacecraft (to be modeled as a pointlike object moving on a geodesic) on a circular orbit of radius around the central mass .
Observer starts at the same position as but, instead of orbiting, stays fixed at the initial coordinate position by using rocket propulsion to counteract the gravitational pull.
Observer is also located at a fixed position but at large distance from the central mass and is assumed to be able to see whenever the two are at the same azimuthal angle .
Show that the proper time intervals , that are measured by the three observers during the completion of one full orbit of observer , are given by
where and are numerical constants that you should determine.
(iii) Briefly interpret the result by arranging the in ascending order.
Paper 3, Section II, 37D
comment(a) Let be a four-dimensional spacetime and let denote the rank tensor defined by
Determine the components of the tensor and use the general law for the transformation of tensor components under a change of coordinates to show that the components of are the same in any coordinate system.
(b) In Cartesian coordinates the Minkowski metric is given by
Spheroidal coordinates are defined through
where is a real constant.
(i) Show that the Minkowski metric in coordinates is given by
(ii) Transform the metric ( ) to null coordinates given by and show that is not a null vector field for .
(iii) Determine a new azimuthal angle such that in the new coordinate system , the vector field is null for any . Write down the Minkowski metric in this new coordinate system.
Paper 4 , Section II, 37D
commentIn linearized general relativity, we consider spacetime metrics that are perturbatively close to Minkowski, , where and . In the Lorenz gauge, the Einstein tensor, at linear order, is given by
where and .
(i) Show that the (fully nonlinear) Einstein equations can be equivalently written in terms of the Ricci tensor as
Show likewise that equation can be written as
(ii) In the Newtonian limit we consider matter sources with small velocities such that time derivatives can be neglected relative to spatial derivatives, and the only non-negligible component of the energy-momentum tensor is the energy density . Show that in this limit, we recover from equation the Poisson equation of Newtonian gravity if we identify .
(iii) A point particle of mass is modelled by the energy density . Derive the Newtonian potential for this point particle by solving the Poisson equation.
[You can assume the solution of is ]
(iv) Now consider the Einstein equations with a small positive cosmological constant, . Repeat the steps of questions (i)-(iii), again identifying , to show that the Newtonian limit is now described by the Poisson equation , and that a solution for the potential of a point particle is given by
where is a constant you should determine. Briefly discuss the effect of the term and determine for which range of the radius the weak-field limit is a justified approximation. [Hint: Absorb the term as part of the energy-momentum tensor. Note also that in spherical symmetry .]
Paper 1, Section II, 17G
comment(a) The complement of a graph is defined as having the same vertex set as the graph, with vertices being adjacent in the complement if and only if they are not adjacent in the graph.
Show that no planar graph of order greater than 10 has a planar complement.
What is the maximum order of a bipartite graph that has a bipartite complement?
(b) For the remainder of this question, let be a connected bridgeless planar graph with vertices, edges, and containing no circuit of length 4 . Suppose that it is drawn with faces, of which are 3-sided.
Show that . Show further that , and hence .
Deduce that . Is there some and some for which equality holds? [Hint: consider "slicing the corners off" a dodecahedron.]
Paper 2, Section II, 17G
comment(i) Define the local connectivity for two non-adjacent vertices and in a graph . Prove Menger's theorem, that contains a set of vertex-disjoint paths.
(ii) Recall that a subdivision of is any graph obtained from by replacing its edges by vertex-disjoint paths. Let be a 3 -connected graph. Show that contains a . Show further that contains a . Must contain a ?
Paper 3, Section II,
comment(i) State and prove Turán's theorem.
(ii) Let be a graph of order with edges. Show that must contain a triangle, and that if then contains two triangles.
(iii) Show that if every edge of lies in a triangle then contains at least triangles.
(iv) Suppose that has some edge contained in no triangles. Show that , and that if then and are not both independent sets.
By induction on , or otherwise, show that every graph of order with edges contains at least triangles. [Hint: If uv is an edge that is contained in no triangles, consider .]
Paper 4 , Section II,
commentState and prove Vizing's theorem about the chromatic index of a graph .
Let be the complete bipartite graph with class sizes and . By first considering , find for all and .
Let be the graph of order obtained by subdividing a single edge of by a new vertex. Show that , where is the maximum degree of .
Paper 1, Section II, 33C
comment(a) Show that if is a symmetric matrix and is skew-symmetric then is symmetric.
(b) Consider the real symmetric matrix
(i.e. for , all other entries being zero) and the real skew-symmetric matrix
(i.e. for , all other entries being zero).
(i) Compute .
(ii) Assume that the are smooth functions of time so the matrix also depends smoothly on . Show that the equation implies that
for some function which you should find explicitly.
(iii) Using the transformation show that
for . [Use the convention ]
(iv) Deduce that given a solution of equation ( , there exist matrices depending on time such that , and explain how to obtain first integrals for from this.
Paper 2, Section II, 33C
comment(i) Explain how the inverse scattering method can be used to solve the initial value problem for the equation
including a description of the scattering data associated to the operator , its time dependence, and the reconstruction of via the inverse scattering problem.
(ii) Solve the inverse scattering problem for the reflectionless case, in which the reflection coefficient is identically zero and the discrete scattering data consists of a single bound state, and hence derive the 1-soliton solution of .
(iii) Consider the direct and inverse scattering problems in the case of a small potential , with arbitrarily small: . Show that the reflection coefficient is given by
and verify that the solution of the inverse scattering problem applied to this reflection coefficient does indeed lead back to the potential when calculated to first order in
Paper 3, Section II, 32C
comment(a) Given a smooth vector field
on define the prolongation of of arbitrary order .
Calculate the prolongation of order two for the group of transformations of given for by
and hence, or otherwise, calculate the prolongation of order two of the vector field . Show that both of the equations and are invariant under this action of , and interpret this geometrically.
(b) Show that the sine-Gordon equation
admits the group , where
as a group of Lie point symmetries. Show that there is a group invariant solution of the form where is an invariant formed from the independent variables, and hence obtain a second order equation for where .
Paper 1, Section II, I
comment(a) Define the dual space of a (real) normed space . Define what it means for two normed spaces to be isometrically isomorphic. Prove that is isometrically isomorphic to .
(b) Let . [In this question, you may use without proof the fact that is isometrically isomorphic to where .]
(i) Show that if is a countable dense subset of , then the function
defines a metric on the closed unit ball . Show further that for a sequence of elements , we have
Deduce that is a compact metric space.
(ii) Give an example to show that for a sequence of elements and ,
Paper 2, Section II, I
comment(a) State and prove the Baire Category theorem.
Let . Apply the Baire Category theorem to show that . Give an explicit element of .
(b) Use the Baire Category theorem to prove that contains a function which is nowhere differentiable.
(c) Let be a real Banach space. Verify that the map sending to the function is a continuous linear map of into where denotes the dual space of . Taking for granted the fact that this map is an isometry regardless of the norm on , prove that if is another norm on the vector space which is not equivalent to , then there is a linear function which is continuous with respect to one of the two norms and not continuous with respect to the other.
Paper 3, Section II, I
commentLet be a separable complex Hilbert space.
(a) For an operator , define the spectrum and point spectrum. Define what it means for to be: (i) a compact operator; (ii) a self-adjoint operator and (iii) a finite rank operator.
(b) Suppose is compact. Prove that given any , there exists a finite-dimensional subspace such that for each , where is an orthonormal basis for and denotes the orthogonal projection onto . Deduce that a compact operator is the operator norm limit of finite rank operators.
(c) Suppose that has finite rank and is not an eigenvalue of . Prove that is surjective. [You may wish to consider the action of on
(d) Suppose is compact and is not an eigenvalue of . Prove that the image of is dense in .
Prove also that is bounded below, i.e. prove also that there exists a constant such that for all . Deduce that is surjective.
Paper 4, Section II, I
comment(a) For a compact Hausdorff space, what does it mean to say that a set is equicontinuous. State and prove the Arzelà-Ascoli theorem.
(b) Suppose is a compact Hausdorff space for which is a countable union of equicontinuous sets. Prove that is finite.
(c) Let be a bounded, continuous function and let . Consider the problem of finding a differentiable function with
for all . For each , let be defined by setting and
for , where
for and .
(i) Verify that is well-defined and continuous on for each .
(ii) Prove that there exists a differentiable function solving (*) for .
Paper 1, Section II, H
comment[Throughout this question, assume the axiom of choice.]
Let and be cardinals. Define and . What does it mean to say ? Show that . Show also that .
Assume now that and are infinite. Show that . Deduce that . Which of the following are always true and which can be false? Give proofs or counterexamples as appropriate. (i) ; (ii) ; (iii) .
Paper 2, Section II, H
comment(a) This part of the question is concerned with propositional logic.
Let be a set of primitive propositions. Let be a consistent, deductively closed set such that for every either or . Show that has a model.
(b) This part of the question is concerned with predicate logic.
(i) State Gödel's completeness theorem for first-order logic. Deduce the compactness theorem, which you should state precisely.
(ii) Let be an infinite set. For each , let be a subset of . Suppose that for any finite there exists a function such that for all and all . Show that there exists a function such that for all and all .
Paper 3, Section II,
commentLet be a model of ZF. Give the definition of a class and a function class in . Use the concept of function class to give a short, informal statement of the Axiom of Replacement.
Let and, for each , let . Show that is a set.
We say that a set is small if there is an injection from to for some . Let HS be the class of sets such that every member of is small, where is the transitive closure of . Show that for all and deduce that . Show further that for all . Deduce that .
Is a model of ZF? Justify your answer.
Recall that and that for all
Paper 4, Section II, 16H
comment(a) State Zorn's lemma.
[Throughout the remainder of this question, assume Zorn's lemma.]
(b) Let be a poset in which every non-empty chain has an upper bound and let . By considering the poset , show that has a maximal element with .
(c) A filter is a non-empty subset satisfying the following three conditions:
if then
if and then
An ultrafilter is a filter such that for all we have either or , where .
(i) For each , show that is an ultrafilter.
(ii) Show that is finite is a filter but not an ultrafilter, and that for all we have .
(iii) Does there exist an ultrafilter such that for any ? Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section I, 6B
commentConsider a bivariate diffusion process with drift vector and diffusion matrix where
and .
(i) Write down the Fokker-Planck equation for the probability .
(ii) Plot the drift vector as a vector field around the origin in the region , .
(iii) Obtain the stationary covariances in terms of the matrices and and hence compute their explicit values.
Paper 2, Section I, 6B
commentConsider the system of predator-prey equations
where and are positive constants.
(i) Determine the non-zero fixed point of this system.
(ii) Show that the system can be written in the form
where and a suitable antisymmetric matrix and scalar function are to be identified.
(iii) Hence, or otherwise, show that is constant on solutions of the predator-prey equations.
Paper 3, Section I, B
commentConsider a model for the common cold in which the population is partitioned into susceptible , infective , and recovered categories, which satisfy
where and are positive constants.
(i) Show that the sum does not change in time.
(ii) Determine the condition, in terms of and , for an endemic steady state to exist, that is, a time-independent state with a non-zero number of infectives.
(iii) By considering a reduced set of equations for and only, show that the endemic steady state identified in (ii) above, if it exists, is stable.
Paper 3, Section II, 13B
commentThe larva of a parasitic worm disperses in one dimension while laying eggs at rate . The larvae die at rate and have diffusivity , so that their density, , obeys
The eggs do not diffuse, so that their density, , obeys
At there are no eggs and larvae concentrated at , so that .
(i) Determine for . Show that as .
(ii) Determine the limit of as .
(iii) Provide a physical explanation for the remnant density of the eggs identified in part (ii).
[You may quote without proof the results
Paper 4, Section I, B
commentConsider a population process in which the probability of transition from a state with individuals to a state with individuals in the interval is for small .
(i) Write down the master equation for the probability, , of the state at time for
(ii) Assuming an initial distribution
show that
(iii) Hence, determine the mean of for .
Paper 4, Section II, 14B
commentConsider the stochastic catalytic reaction
in which a single enzyme complexes reversibly to (at forward rate and reverse rate ) and decomposes into product (at forward rate ), regenerating enzyme . Assume there is sufficient substrate so that this catalytic cycle can continue indefinitely. Let be the probability of the state with enzyme and products and the probability of the state with complex and products, these states being mutually exclusive.
(i) Write down the master equation for the probabilities and for
(ii) Assuming an initial state with zero products, solve the master equation for and .
(iii) Hence find the probability distribution of the time taken to form the first product.
(iv) Obtain the mean of .
Paper 1, Section II, J
comment(a) Let be i.i.d. random elements taking values in a set and let be a class of functions . Define the Rademacher complexity . Write down an inequality relating the Rademacher complexity and
State the bounded differences inequality.
(b) Now given i.i.d. input-output pairs consider performing empirical risk minimisation with misclassification loss over the class of classifiers . Denote by the empirical risk minimiser [which you may assume exists]. For any classifier , let be its misclassification risk and suppose this is minimised over by . Prove that with probability at least ,
for , where is a class of functions related to that you should specify.
(c) Let for . Define the empirical Rademacher complexity . Show that with probability at least ,
Paper 2, Section II, J
comment(a) Let be a family of functions . What does it mean for to be shattered by ? Define the shattering coefficient and the dimension of
Let
and set . Compute .
(b) State the Sauer-Shelah lemma.
(c) Let be families of functions with finite VC dimension . Now suppose is shattered by . Show that
Conclude that for ,
[You may use without proof the fact that if with and , then for .]
(d) Now let be the collection of subsets of of the form of a product of intervals , where exactly of the are of the form for and the remaining intervals are . Set . Show that when ,
Paper 4, Section II, J
commentSuppose we have input-output pairs . Consider the empirical risk minimisation problem with hypothesis class
where is a non-empty closed convex subset of , and logistic loss
for and .
(i) Show that the objective function of the optimisation problem is convex.
(ii) Let denote the projection of onto . Describe the procedure of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for minimisation of above, giving explicit forms for any gradients used in the algorithm.
(iii) Suppose minimises over . Suppose and . Prove that the output of iterations of the SGD algorithm with some fixed step size (which you should specify), satisfies
(iv) Now suppose that the step size at iteration is for each . Show that, writing for the th iterate of SGD, we have
where
[You may use standard properties of convex functions and projections onto closed convex sets without proof provided you state them.]
Paper 1, Section II, 20G
commentState Minkowski's theorem.
Let , where is a square-free positive integer, not congruent to 3 Show that every nonzero ideal contains an element with
Deduce the finiteness of the class group of .
Compute the class group of . Hence show that the equation has no integer solutions.
Paper 2, Section II, 20G
comment(a) Let be a number field of degree . Define the discriminant of an -tuple of elements of , and show that it is nonzero if and only if is a -basis for .
(b) Let where has minimal polynomial
and assume that is a prime such that, for every , but .
(i) Show that is a prime ideal, that and that . [Do not assume that .]
(ii) Show that the index of in is prime to .
(iii) If with , show that . [You may assume without proof that the discriminant of is .]
Paper 4, Section II, 20G
commentLet be a number field of degree , and let be the set of complex embeddings of . Show that if satisfies for every , then is a root of unity. Prove also that there exists such that if and for all , then is a root of unity.
State Dirichlet's Unit theorem.
Let be a real quadratic field. Assuming Dirichlet's Unit theorem, show that the set of units of which are greater than 1 has a smallest element , and that the group of units of is then . Determine for , justifying your result. [If you use the continued fraction algorithm, you must prove it in full.]
Paper 1, Section I, H
commentWhat does it mean to say that a positive definite binary quadratic form is reduced?
Find all reduced binary quadratic forms of discriminant .
Prove that if a prime is represented by , then or .
Paper 2, Section I,
commentLet .
For each integer , define the convergents of the continued fraction expansion of . Show that for all . Deduce that if and satisfy
then .
Compute the continued fraction expansion of . Hence or otherwise find a solution in positive integers and to the equation .
Paper 3, Section I,
commentLet be an odd integer and an integer with . What does it mean to say that is an Euler pseudoprime to base ?
Show that if is not an Euler pseudoprime to some base , then it is not an Euler pseudoprime to at least half the bases .
Show that if is odd and composite, then there exists an integer such that is not an Euler pseudoprime to base .
Paper 3, Section II, 11H
commentLet be an odd prime.
(i) Define the Legendre symbol , and show that when , then .
(ii) State and prove Gauss's lemma, and use it to evaluate . [You may assume Euler's criterion.]
(iii) Prove that
and deduce that
Hence or otherwise determine the number of pairs of consecutive integers such that and both and are quadratic residues .
Paper 4 , Section II, 11H
comment(a) What does it mean to say that a function is multiplicative? Show that if are both multiplicative, then so is , defined for all by
Show that if , where is the Möbius function, then , where 1 denotes the constant function 1 .
(b) Let denote the number of positive divisors of . Find such that , and deduce that is multiplicative. Hence or otherwise show that for all with ,
where is the Riemann zeta function.
(c) Fix . By considering suitable powers of the product of the first primes, show that
for infinitely many .
(d) Fix . Show that
where denotes the fact that is such that but . Deduce that there exists a positive constant depending only on such that for all
Paper 4, Section I, H
commentLet be a prime.
State and prove Lagrange's theorem on the number of solutions of a polynomial congruence modulo . Deduce that .
Let be a positive integer such that . Show that the congruence
has precisely solutions modulo .
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentLet be a real symmetric matrix with distinct eigenvalues and a corresponding orthonormal basis of real eigenvectors . Given a unit norm vector , and a set of parameters , consider the inverse iteration algorithm
(a) Let const for all . Assuming that with all , prove that
Explain briefly what happens to when for some , and when .
(b) Let for . Assuming that, for some , some and for a small ,
where is the appropriate normalising constant. Show that and determine the value of . Hence show that
where is the appropriate normalising constant, and find expressions for .
Paper 2, Section II, 40E
comment(a) For and nonzero , define the -th Krylov subspace of . Prove that if has linearly independent eigenvectors with at most distinct eigenvalues, then
(b) Define the term residual in the conjugate gradient (CG) method for solving a system with a symmetric positive definite . State two properties of the method regarding residuals and their connection to certain Krylov subspaces, and hence show that, for any right-hand side , the method finds the exact solution after at most iterations, where is the number of distinct eigenvalues of .
(c) The preconditioned CG-method is applied for solving , with
Prove that the method finds the exact solution after two iterations at most.
(d) Prove that, for any symmetric positive definite , we can find a preconditioner such that the preconditioned CG-method for solving would require only one step. Explain why this preconditioning is of hardly any use.
Paper 3, Section II, 40E
comment(a) Give the definition of a normal matrix. Prove that if is normal, then the (Euclidean) matrix -norm of is equal to its spectral radius, i.e., .
(b) The advection equation
is discretized by the Crank-Nicolson scheme
Here, is the Courant number, with , and is an approximation to .
Using the eigenvalue analysis and carefully justifying each step, determine conditions on for which the method is stable. [Hint: All M Toeplitz anti-symmetric tridiagonal (TAT) matrices have the same set of orthogonal eigenvectors, and a TAT matrix with the elements and has the eigenvalues where . ]
(c) Consider the same advection equation for the Cauchy problem . Now it is discretized by the two-step leapfrog scheme
Applying the Fourier technique, find the range of for which the method is stable.
Paper 4 , Section II, 40E
comment(a) For a function which is real analytic in and 2-periodic in each variable, its Fourier expansion is given by the formula
Derive expressions for the Fourier coefficients of partial derivatives and those of the product in terms of and .
(b) Let be the 2-periodic solution in of the general second-order elliptic PDE
where and are both real analytic and 2-periodic, and . We impose the normalisation condition and note from the PDE .
Construct explicitly the infinite-dimensional linear algebraic system that arises from the application of the Fourier spectral method to the above equation, and explain how to truncate this system to a finite-dimensional one.
(c) Specify the truncated system for the unknowns for the case
and prove that, for any ordering of the Fourier coefficients into one-dimensional array, the resulting system is symmetric and positive definite. [You may use the Gershgorin theorem without proof.]
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentLet be the lowering operator of a one dimensional quantum harmonic oscillator of mass and frequency , and let be the ground state defined by .
a) Evaluate the commutator .
b) For , let be the unitary operator and define . By differentiating with respect to or otherwise, show that
c) The ground state of the harmonic oscillator saturates the uncertainty relation . Compute when the oscillator is in the state .
Paper 2, Section II, A
comment(a) Consider the Hamiltonian , where is time-independent and non-degenerate. The system is prepared to be in some state at time , where is an orthonormal basis of eigenstates of . Derive an expression for the state at time , correct to first order in , giving your answer in the interaction picture.
(b) An atom is modelled as a two-state system, where the excited state has energy above that of the ground state . The atom interacts with an electromagnetic field, modelled as a harmonic oscillator of frequency . The Hamiltonian is , where
is the Hamiltonian in the absence of interactions and
describes the coupling between the atom and the field.
(i) Interpret each of the two terms in . What value must the constant take for time evolution to be unitary?
(ii) At the atom is in state while the field is described by the (normalized) state of the oscillator. Calculate the probability that at time the atom will be in its excited state and the field will be described by the excited state of the oscillator. Give your answer to first non-trivial order in perturbation theory. Show that this probability vanishes when .
Paper 3, Section II, 33A
commentExplain what is meant by the terms boson and fermion.
Three distinguishable spin-1 particles are governed by the Hamiltonian
where is the spin operator of particle and is a positive constant. How many spin states are possible altogether? By considering the total spin operator, determine the eigenvalues and corresponding degeneracies of the Hamiltonian.
Now consider the case that all three particles are indistinguishable and all have the same spatial wavefunction. What are the degeneracies of the Hamiltonian in this case?
Paper 4, Section II,
commentBriefly explain why the density operator obeys and . What is meant by a pure state and a mixed state?
A two-state system evolves under the Hamiltonian , where is a constant vector and are the Pauli matrices. At time the system is described by a density operator
where is the identity operator. Initially, the vector obeys and . Find in terms of a and . At what time, if any, is the system definitely in the state that obeys
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentState and prove the Cramér-Rao inequality for a real-valued parameter . [Necessary regularity conditions need not be stated.]
In a general decision problem, define what it means for a decision rule to be minimax.
Let be i.i.d. from a distribution, where . Prove carefully that is minimax for quadratic risk on .
Paper 2, Section II, J
commentConsider from a distribution with parameter . Derive the likelihood ratio test statistic for the composite hypothesis
where is the parameter space constrained by .
Prove carefully that
where is a Chi-Square distribution with one degree of freedom.
Paper 3, Section II, J
commentLet , let be a probability density function on and suppose we are given a further auxiliary conditional probability density function , on from which we can generate random draws. Consider a sequence of random variables generated as follows:
For and given , generate a new draw .
Define
where .
(i) Show that the Markov chain has invariant measure , that is, show that for all (measurable) subsets and all we have
(ii) Now suppose that is the posterior probability density function arising in a statistical model with observations and a prior distribution on . Derive a family such that in the above algorithm the acceptance probability is a function of the likelihood ratio , and for which the probability density function has covariance matrix for all .
Paper 4 , Section II, J
commentConsider drawn from a statistical model , with non-singular Fisher information matrix . For , define likelihood ratios
Next consider the probability density functions of normal distributions with corresponding likelihood ratios given by
Show that for every fixed , the random variables converge in distribution as to
[You may assume suitable regularity conditions of the model without specification, and results on uniform laws of large numbers from lectures can be used without proof.]
Paper 1, Section II, 27K
comment(a) Let be a probability space. State the definition of the space . Show that it is a Hilbert space.
(b) Give an example of two real random variables that are not independent and yet have the same law.
(c) Let be random variables distributed uniformly on . Let be the Lebesgue measure on the interval , and let be the Borel -algebra. Consider the expression
where Var denotes the variance and .
Assume that are pairwise independent. Compute in terms of the variance .
(d) Now we no longer assume that are pairwise independent. Show that
where the supremum ranges over functions such that and .
[Hint: you may wish to compute for the family of functions where and denotes the indicator function of the subset
Paper 2, Section II,
commentLet be a set. Recall that a Boolean algebra of subsets of is a family of subsets containing the empty set, which is stable under finite union and under taking complements. As usual, let be the -algebra generated by .
(a) State the definitions of a -algebra, that of a measure on a measurable space, as well as the definition of a probability measure.
(b) State Carathéodory's extension theorem.
(c) Let be a probability measure space. Let be a Boolean algebra of subsets of . Let be the family of all with the property that for every , there is such that
where denotes the symmetric difference of and , i.e., .
(i) Show that is contained in . Show by example that this may fail if .
(ii) Now assume that , where is the -algebra of Lebesgue measurable subsets of and is the Lebesgue measure. Let be the family of all finite unions of sub-intervals. Is it true that is equal to in this case? Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section II, 26K
commentLet be a probability measure preserving system.
(a) State what it means for to be ergodic.
(b) State Kolmogorov's 0-1 law for a sequence of independent random variables. What does it imply for the canonical model associated with an i.i.d. random process?
(c) Consider the special case when is the -algebra of Borel subsets, and is the map defined as
(i) Check that the Lebesgue measure on is indeed an invariant probability measure for .
(ii) Let and for . Show that forms a sequence of i.i.d. random variables on , and that the -algebra is all of . [Hint: check first that for any integer is a disjoint union of intervals of length .]
(iii) Is ergodic? Justify your answer.
Paper 4, Section II, K
comment(a) State and prove the strong law of large numbers for sequences of i.i.d. random variables with a finite moment of order 4 .
(b) Let be a sequence of independent random variables such that
Let be a sequence of real numbers such that
Set
(i) Show that converges in to a random variable as . Does it converge in ? Does it converge in law?
(ii) Show that .
(iii) Let be a sequence of i.i.d. standard Gaussian random variables, i.e. each is distributed as . Show that then converges in law as to a random variable and determine the law of the limit.
Paper 1, Section I, 10C
commentSuppose we measure an observable on a qubit, where is a unit vector and is the vector of Pauli operators.
(i) Express as a matrix in terms of the components of .
(ii) Representing in terms of spherical polar coordinates as , rewrite the above matrix in terms of the angles and .
(iii) What are the possible outcomes of the above measurement?
(iv) Suppose the qubit is initially in a state . What is the probability of getting an outcome 1?
(v) Consider the three-qubit state
Suppose the second qubit is measured relative to the computational basis. What is the probability of getting an outcome 1? State the rule that you are using.
Paper 2, Section I, 10C
commentConsider the set of states
where and (addition modulo 2 ).
(i) Show that
where denotes the Hadamard gate and CX denotes the controlled- gate.
(ii) Show that for any ,
[Hint: For any unitary operator , we have , where denotes the transpose of with respect to the computational basis.]
(iii) Suppose Alice and Bob initially share the state . Show using (*) how Alice can communicate two classical bits to Bob by sending him only a single qubit.
Paper 2, Section II, 15C
comment(a) Show how the -qubit state
can be generated from a computational basis state of by the action of Hadamard gates.
(b) Prove that , where denotes the controlled- gate. Justify (without any explicit calculations) the following identity:
(c) Consider the following two-qubit circuit:
What is its action on an arbitrary 2-qubit state In particular, for two given states and , find the states and such that
(d) Consider the following quantum circuit diagram
where the measurement is relative to the computational basis and is the quantum gate from part (c). Note that the second gate in the circuit performs the following controlled operation:
(i) Give expressions for the joint state of the three qubits after the action of the first Hadamard gate; after the action of the quantum gate ; and after the action of the second Hadamard gate.
(ii) Compute the probabilities and of getting outcome 0 and 1 , respectively, in the measurement.
(iii) How can the above circuit be used to determine (with high probability) whether the two states and are identical or not? [Assume that you are given arbitrarily many copies of the three input states and that the quantum circuit can be used arbitrarily many times.]
Paper 3, Section I,
commentFor and consider the operator
Let be a unitary operator on with action on given as follows
where is a constant in and are orthonormal states.
(i) Give an explicit expression of the state .
(ii) Find a for which .
(iii) Choosing in equation (), calculate the state . For what choice of is this state proportional to ?
(iv) Describe how the above considerations can be used to find a marked element in a list of four items . Assume that you have the state and can act on it with a unitary operator that prepares the uniform superposition of four orthonormal basis states of . [You may use the operators (defined in (†)), and for any choice of and any .]
Paper 3, Section II, C
commentConsider the quantum oracle for a function which acts on the state of qubits as follows:
The function is promised to have the following property: there exists a such that for any ,
where .
(a) What is the nature of the function for the case in which , and for the case in which ?
(b) Suppose initially each of the qubits are in the state . They are then subject to the following operations:
Each of the first qubits forming an input register are acted on by Hadamard gates;
The qubits are then acted on by the quantum oracle ;
Next, the qubits in the input register are individually acted on by Hadamard gates.
(i) List the states of the qubits after each of the above operations; the expression for the final state should involve the -bit "dot product" which is defined as follows:
where with and .
(ii) Justify that if then for any and any , , the following identity holds:
(iii) For the case , what is the probability that a measurement of the input register, relative to the computational basis of results in a string ?
(iv) For the case , show that the probability that the above-mentioned measurement of the input register results in a string , is equal to the following:
zero for all strings satisfying , and for any fixed string satisfying .
[State any identity you may employ. You may use .]
Paper 4, Section I, C
comment(i) What is the action of on a state , where and denotes the Quantum Fourier Transform modulo ?
(ii) For the case write respectively in binary as thereby identifying the four-dimensional space as that of two qubits. Show that is an unentangled state of the two qubits.
(iii) Prove that , where .
[Hint: For if is not a multiple of .]
(iv) What is the action of on a state , for any ? Use the above to determine what the eigenvalues of are.
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentState and prove Maschke's theorem.
Let be the group of isometries of . Recall that is generated by the elements where and for .
Show that every non-faithful finite-dimensional complex representation of is a direct sum of subrepresentations of dimension at most two.
Write down a finite-dimensional complex representation of the group that is not a direct sum of one-dimensional subrepresentations. Hence, or otherwise, find a finitedimensional complex representation of that is not a direct sum of subrepresentations of dimension at most two. Briefly justify your answer.
[Hint: You may assume that any non-trivial normal subgroup of contains an element of the form for some .]
Paper 2, Section II, F
commentLet be the unique non-abelian group of order 21 up to isomorphism. Compute the character table of .
[You may find it helpful to think of as the group of matrices of the form with and . You may use any standard results from the course provided you state them clearly.]
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentState Mackey's restriction formula and Frobenius reciprocity for characters. Deduce Mackey's irreducibility criterion for an induced representation.
For show that if is the subgroup of consisting of the elements that fix , and is a complex representation of , then is not irreducible.
Paper 4, Section II, F
comment(a) State and prove Burnside's lemma. Deduce that if a finite group acts 2transitively on a set then the corresponding permutation character has precisely two (distinct) irreducible summands.
(b) Suppose that is a field with elements. Write down a list of conjugacy class representatives for . Consider the natural action of on the set of lines through the origin in . What values does the corresponding permutation character take on each conjugacy class representative in your list? Decompose this permutation character into irreducible characters.
Paper 1, Section II, 24F
commentAssuming any facts about triangulations that you need, prove the Riemann-Hurwitz theorem.
Use the Riemann-Hurwitz theorem to prove that, for any cubic polynomial , there are affine transformations and such that is of one of the following two forms:
Paper 2, Section II, 23F
commentLet be a rational function. What does it mean for to be a ramification point? What does it mean for to be a branch point?
Let be the set of branch points of , and let be the set of ramification points. Show that
is a regular covering map.
State the monodromy theorem. For , explain how a closed curve based at defines a permutation of .
For the rational function
identify the group of all such permutations.
Paper 3, Section II, F
commentLet be a lattice. Give the definition of the associated Weierstrass -function as an infinite sum, and prove that it converges. [You may use without proof the fact that
converges if and only if .]
Consider the half-lattice points
and let . Using basic properties of , explain why the values are distinct
Give an example of a lattice and a conformal equivalence such that acts transitively on the images of the half-lattice points .
Paper 1, Section I, J
commentConsider a generalised linear model with full column rank design matrix , output variables , link function , mean parameters and known dispersion parameters . Denote its variance function by and recall that , where and is the row of .
(a) Define the score function in terms of the log-likelihood function and the Fisher information matrix, and define the update of the Fisher scoring algorithm.
(b) Let be a diagonal matrix with positive entries. Note that is invertible. Show that
[Hint: you may use that
(c) Recall that the score function and the Fisher information matrix have entries
Justify, performing the necessary calculations and using part (b), why the Fisher scoring algorithm is also known as the iterative reweighted least squares algorithm.
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentWe consider a subset of the data on car insurance claims from Hallin and Ingenbleek (1983). For each customer, the dataset includes total payments made per policy-year, the amount of kilometres driven, the bonus from not having made previous claims, and the brand of the car. The amount of kilometres driven is a factor taking values , or 5 , where a car in level has driven a larger number of kilometres than a car in level for any . A statistician from an insurance company fits the following model on .
model1 <- Im(Paymentperpolicyyr as numeric(Kilometres) Brand Bonus)
(i) Why do you think the statistician transformed variable Kilometres from a factor to a numerical variable?
(ii) To check the quality of the model, the statistician applies a function to model1 which returns the following figure:
What does the plot represent? Does it suggest that model1 is a good model? Explain. If not, write down a model which the plot suggests could be better.
(iii) The statistician fits the model suggested by the graph and calls it model2. Consider the following abbreviated output:
Coefficients:
Brand2
Brand9
Bonus
Signif. codes: 0 '' '' '' '.' ' 1
Residual standard error: on 284 degrees of freedom ..
Using the output, write down a prediction interval for the ratio between the total payments per policy year for two cars of the same brand and with the same value of Bonus, one of which has a Kilometres value one higher than the other. You may express your answer as a function of quantiles of a common distribution, which you should specify.
(iv) Write down a generalised linear model for Paymentperpolicyyr which may be a better model than model1 and give two reasons. You must specify the link function.
Paper 2, Section I, J
commentThe data frame WCG contains data from a study started in 1960 about heart disease. The study used 3154 adult men, all free of heart disease at the start, and eight and a half years later it recorded into variable chd whether they suffered from heart disease (1 if the respective man did and 0 otherwise) along with their height and average number of cigarettes smoked per day. Consider the code below and its abbreviated output.
(a) Write down the model fitted by the code above.
(b) Interpret the effect on heart disease of a man smoking an average of two packs of cigarettes per day if each pack contains 20 cigarettes.
(c) Give an alternative latent logistic-variable representation of the model. [Hint: if is the cumulative distribution function of a logistic random variable, its inverse function is the logit function.]
Paper 3, Section I, J
commentSuppose we have data , where the are independent conditional on the design matrix whose rows are the . Suppose that given , the true probability density function of is , so that the data is generated from an element of a model for some and .
(a) Define the log-likelihood function for , the maximum likelihood estimator of and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) for .
From now on let be the normal linear model, i.e. , where has full column rank and .
(b) Let denote the maximum likelihood estimator of . Show that the AIC of is
(c) Let be a chi-squared distribution on degrees of freedom. Using any results from the course, show that the distribution of the AIC of is
Hint: , where is the maximum likelihood estimator of and is the projection matrix onto the column space of .]
Paper 4, Section I, J
commentSuppose you have a data frame with variables response, covar1, and covar2. You run the following commands on .
...
(a) Consider the following three scenarios:
(i) All the output you have is the abbreviated output of summary (model) above.
(ii) You have the abbreviated output of summary (model) above together with
Residual standard error: on 47 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: , Adjusted R-squared:
F-statistic: on 2 and 47 DF, p-value: <
(iii) You have the abbreviated output of summary (model) above together with
Residual standard error: on 47 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: , Adjusted R-squared:
F-statistic: on 2 and 47 DF, p-value:
What conclusion can you draw about which variables explain the response in each of the three scenarios? Explain.
(b) Assume now that you have the abbreviated output of summary (model) above together with
anova(lm(response response , model
What are the values of the entries with a question mark? [You may express your answers as arithmetic expressions if necessary].
Paper 4, Section II, J
comment(a) Define a generalised linear model with design matrix , output variables and parameters and . Derive the moment generating function of , i.e. give an expression for , wherever it is well-defined.
Assume from now on that the GLM satisfies the usual regularity assumptions, has full column rank, and is known and satisfies .
(b) Let be the output variables of a GLM from the same family as that of part (a) and parameters and . Suppose the output variables may be split into blocks of size with constant parameters. To be precise, for each block , if then
with and defined as in part a . Let , where .
(i) Show that is equal to in distribution. [Hint: you may use without proof that moment generating functions uniquely determine distributions from exponential dispersion families.]
(ii) For any , let , where . Show that the model function of satisfies
for some functions , and conclude that is a sufficient statistic for from .
(iii) For the model and data from part (a), let be the maximum likelihood estimator for and let be the deviance at . Using (i) and (ii), show that
where means equality in distribution and and are nested subspaces of which you should specify. Argue that and , and, assuming the usual regularity assumptions, conclude that
stating the name of the result from class that you use.
Paper 1, Section II, A
commentUsing the notion of entropy, show that two systems that can freely exchange energy reach the same temperature. Show that the energy of a system increases with temperature.
A system consists of distinguishable, non-interacting spin atoms in a magnetic field, where is large. The energy of an atom is if the spin is up and if the spin is down. Find the entropy and energy if a fraction of the atoms have spin up. Determine as a function of temperature, and deduce the allowed range of . Verify that the energy of the system increases with temperature in this range.
Paper 2, Section II, A
commentUsing the Gibbs free energy , derive the Maxwell relation
Define the notions of heat capacity at constant volume, , and heat capacity at constant pressure, . Show that
Derive the Clausius-Clapeyron relation for along the first-order phase transition curve between a liquid and a gas. Find the simplified form of this relation, assuming the gas has much larger volume than the liquid and that the gas is ideal. Assuming further that the latent heat is a constant, determine the form of as a function of along the phase transition curve. [You may assume there is no discontinuity in the Gibbs free energy across the phase transition curve.]
Paper 3, Section II, A
commentStarting with the density of electromagnetic radiation modes in -space, determine the energy of black-body radiation in a box of volume at temperature .
Using the first law of thermodynamics show that
By using this relation determine the pressure of the black-body radiation.
[You are given the following:
(i) The mean number of photons in a radiation mode of frequency is ,
(ii) ,
(iii) You may assume vanishes with more rapidly than linearly, as . ]
Paper 4, Section II, A
commentConsider a classical gas of particles in volume , where the total energy is the standard kinetic energy plus a potential depending on the relative locations of the particles .
(i) Starting from the partition function, show that the free energy of the gas is
where is the free energy when .
(ii) Suppose now that the gas is fairly dilute and that the integral in is small compared to and is dominated by two-particle interactions. Show that the free energy simplifies to the form
and find an integral expression for . Using ( ) find the equation of state of the gas, and verify that is the second virial coefficient.
(iii) The equation of state for a Clausius gas is
for some constant . Find the second virial coefficient for this gas. Evaluate for a gas of hard sphere atoms of radius .
Paper 1, Section II, 30K
commentConsider a single-period asset price model in where, for ,
with a non-random vector in and
Assume that is invertible. An investor has initial wealth which is invested in the market at time 0 , to hold units of the riskless asset and units of risky asset , for .
(a) Show that in order to minimize the variance of the wealth held at time 1 , subject to the constraint
with given, the investor should choose a portfolio of the form
where is to be determined.
(b) Show that the same portfolio is optimal for a utility-maximizing investor with CARA utility function
for a unique choice of , also to be determined.
Paper 2, Section II, 29K
commentLet be a discrete-time asset price model in with numéraire.
(i) What is meant by an arbitrage for such a model?
(ii) What does it mean to say that the model is complete?
Consider now the case where and where
for some and some independent positive random variables with for all .
(iii) Find an equivalent probability measure such that the discounted asset price is a martingale.
(iv) Does this model have an arbitrage? Justify your answer.
(v) By considering the contingent claim or otherwise, show that this model is not complete.
Paper 3, Section II, 29K
comment(a) Let be a real-valued random process.
(i) What does it mean to say that is a Brownian motion?
(ii) State the reflection principle for Brownian motion.
(b) Suppose that is a Brownian motion and set and .
(i) Find the joint distribution function of and .
(ii) Show that has a joint density function on given by
(iii) You are given that two of the three processes and have the same distribution. Identify which two, justifying your answer.
Paper 4, Section II, K
comment(i) What does it mean to say that is a Black-Scholes model with interest rate , drift and volatility ?
(ii) Write down the Black-Scholes pricing formula for the time- 0 value of a time- contingent claim .
(iii) Show that if is a European call of strike and maturity then
(iv) For the European call, derive the Black-Scholes pricing formula
where is the standard normal distribution function and and are to be determined.
(v) Fix and consider a modified contract which gives the investor the right but not the obligation to buy one unit of the risky asset at price , either at time or time but not both, where the choice of exercise time is to be made by the investor at time . Determine whether the investor should exercise the contract at time .
Paper 1, Section I,
commentLet be a continuous map never taking the value 0 and satisfying . Define the degree (or winding number) of about 0 . Prove the following.
(i) If is a continuous map satisfying , then the winding number of the product is given by .
(ii) If is continuous, and for each , then .
(iii) Let and let be a continuous function with whenever . Define by . Then if , there must exist some , such that . [It may help to define . Homotopy invariance of the winding number may be assumed.]
Paper 2, Section I,
commentShow that every Legendre polynomial has distinct roots in , where is the degree of .
Let be distinct numbers in . Show that there are unique real numbers such that the formula
holds for every polynomial of degree less than .
Now suppose that the above formula in fact holds for every polynomial of degree less than . Show that then are the roots of . Show also that and that all are positive.
Paper 2, Section II, H
commentLet be a (closed) triangle in with edges . Let , be closed subsets of , such that and . Prove that is non-empty.
Deduce that there is no continuous map such that for all , where is the closed unit disc and is its boundary.
Let now be three closed arcs, each arc making an angle of (in radians) in and . Let and be open subsets of , such that , and . Suppose that . Show that is non-empty. [You may assume that for each closed bounded subset defines a continuous function on .]
Paper 3, Section I, H
commentState Runge's theorem about the uniform approximation of holomorphic functions by polynomials.
Explicitly construct, with a brief justification, a sequence of polynomials which converges uniformly to on the semicircle .
Does there exist a sequence of polynomials converging uniformly to on ? Give a justification.
Paper 4, Section I,
commentDefine what is meant by a nowhere dense set in a metric space. State a version of the Baire Category theorem.
Let be a continuous function such that as for every fixed . Show that as .
Paper 4, Section II, H
comment(a) State Liouville's theorem on the approximation of algebraic numbers by rationals.
(b) Let be a sequence of positive integers and let
be the value of the associated continued fraction.
(i) Prove that the th convergent satisfies
for all the rational numbers such that .
(ii) Show that if the sequence is bounded, then one can choose (depending only on ), so that for every rational number ,
(iii) Show that if the sequence is unbounded, then for each there exist infinitely many rational numbers such that
[You may assume without proof the relation
Paper 1, Section II, B
comment(a) Write down the linearised equations governing motion of an inviscid compressible fluid at uniform entropy. Assuming that the velocity is irrotational, show that the velocity potential satisfies the wave equation and identify the wave speed . Obtain from these linearised equations the energy-conservation equation
and give expressions for the acoustic-energy density and the acoustic-energy flux, or intensity, I.
(b) Inviscid compressible fluid with density and sound speed occupies the regions and , which are separated by a thin elastic membrane at an undisturbed position . The membrane has mass per unit area and is under a constant tension . Small displacements of the membrane to are coupled to small acoustic disturbances in the fluid with velocity potential .
(i) Write down the (linearised) kinematic and dynamic boundary conditions at the membrane. [Hint: The elastic restoring force on the membrane is like that on a stretched string.]
(ii) Show that the dispersion relation for waves proportional to propagating along the membrane with as is given by
Interpret this equation by explaining physically why all disturbances propagate with phase speed less than and why as .
(iii) Show that in such a wave the component of mean acoustic intensity perpendicular to the membrane is zero.
Paper 2, Section II, 39B
commentSmall displacements in a homogeneous elastic medium are governed by the equation
where is the density, and and are the Lamé constants.
(a) Show that the equation supports two types of harmonic plane-wave solutions, , with distinct wavespeeds, and , and distinct polarizations. Write down the direction of the displacement vector A for a -wave, an -wave and an -wave, in each case for the wavevector .
(b) Given and , with , explain how to construct a superposition of -waves with wavenumbers and , such that
where is an even function, and and are both real functions, to be determined. Similarly, find a superposition of -waves with again in the form .
(c) An elastic waveguide consists of an elastic medium in with rigid boundaries at . Using your answers to part (b), show that the waveguide supports propagating eigenmodes that are a mixture of - and -waves, and have dispersion relation given by
Sketch the two sides of the dispersion relationship as functions of . Explain briefly why there are infinitely many solutions.
Paper 3, Section II, B
commentThe dispersion relation for capillary waves on the surface of deep water is
where is the density and is the coefficient of surface tension. The free surface is undisturbed for , when it is suddenly impacted by an object, giving the initial conditions at time :
where is a constant.
(i) Use Fourier analysis to find an integral expression for when .
(ii) Use the method of stationary phase to find the asymptotic behaviour of for fixed as , for the case . Show that the result can be written in the form
and determine the function .
(iii) Give a brief physical interpretation of the link between the condition 1 and the simple dependence on the product .
[You are given that for ]
Paper 4, Section II, B
comment(a) Show that the equations for one-dimensional unsteady flow of an inviscid compressible fluid at constant entropy can be put in the form
where and are the fluid velocity and the local sound speed, respectively, and the Riemann invariants are to be defined.
Such a fluid occupies a long narrow tube along the -axis. For times it is at rest with uniform pressure , density and sound speed . At a finite segment, , is disturbed so that and , with for and . Explain, with the aid of a carefully labelled sketch, how two independent simple waves emerge after some time. You may assume that no shock waves form.
(b) A fluid has the adiabatic equation of state
where and are positive constants and .
(i) Calculate the Riemann invariants for this fluid, and express in terms of and . Deduce that in a simple wave with the velocity field translates, without any nonlinear distortion, at the equilibrium sound speed .
(ii) At this fluid occupies and is at rest with uniform pressure, density and sound speed. For a piston initially at executes simple harmonic motion with position , where . Show that , where , for some function that is zero for and is -periodic, but not simple harmonic, for . By approximately inverting the relationship between and the time that a characteristic leaves the piston for the case , show that