Part II, 2021, Paper 1
Part II, 2021, Paper 1
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Paper 1, Section II, I
commentLet be an algebraically closed field and let be a non-empty affine variety. Show that is a finite union of irreducible subvarieties.
Let and be subvarieties of given by the vanishing loci of ideals and respectively. Prove the following assertions.
(i) The variety is equal to the vanishing locus of the ideal .
(ii) The variety is equal to the vanishing locus of the ideal .
Decompose the vanishing locus
into irreducible components.
Let be the union of the three coordinate axes. Let be the union of three distinct lines through the point in . Prove that is not isomorphic to .
Paper 1, Section II, 21F
comment(a) What does it mean for two spaces and to be homotopy equivalent?
(b) What does it mean for a subspace to be a retract of a space ? What does it mean for a space to be contractible? Show that a retract of a contractible space is contractible.
(c) Let be a space and a subspace. We say the pair has the homotopy extension property if, for any pair of maps and with
there exists a map with
Now suppose that is contractible. Denote by the quotient of by the equivalence relation if and only if or . Show that, if satisfies the homotopy extension property, then and are homotopy equivalent.
Paper 1, Section II,
commentBelow, is the -algebra of Lebesgue measurable sets and is Lebesgue measure.
(a) State the Lebesgue differentiation theorem for an integrable function . Let be integrable and define by for some . Show that is differentiable -almost everywhere.
(b) Suppose is strictly increasing, continuous, and maps sets of -measure zero to sets of -measure zero. Show that we can define a measure on by setting for , and establish that . Deduce that is differentiable -almost everywhere. Does the result continue to hold if is assumed to be non-decreasing rather than strictly increasing?
[You may assume without proof that a strictly increasing, continuous, function is injective, and is continuous.]
Paper 1, Section II, B
comment(a) Discuss the variational principle that allows one to derive an upper bound on the energy of the ground state for a particle in one dimension subject to a potential .
If , how could you adapt the variational principle to derive an upper bound on the energy of the first excited state?
(b) Consider a particle of mass (in certain units) subject to a potential
(i) Using the trial wavefunction
with , derive the upper bound , where
(ii) Find the zero of in and show that any extremum must obey
(iii) By sketching or otherwise, deduce that there must always be a minimum in . Hence deduce the existence of a bound state.
(iv) Working perturbatively in , show that
[Hint: You may use that for
Paper 1, Section II, 28K
commentThe particles of an Ideal Gas form a spatial Poisson process on with constant intensity , called the activity of the gas.
(a) Prove that the independent mixture of two Ideal Gases with activities and is again an Ideal Gas. What is its activity? [You must prove any results about Poisson processes that you use. The independent mixture of two gases with particles and is given by
(b) For an Ideal Gas of activity , find the limiting distribution of
as for a given sequence of subsets with .
(c) Let be a smooth non-negative function vanishing outside a bounded subset of . Find the mean and variance of , where the sum runs over the particles of an ideal gas of activity . [You may use the properties of spatial Poisson processes established in the lectures.]
[Hint: recall that the characteristic function of a Poisson random variable with mean is
Paper 1, Section I, F
commentLet be the partial function on variables that is computed by the th machine (or the empty function if does not encode a machine).
Define the halting set .
Given , what is a many-one reduction of to ?
State the theorem and use it to show that a subset of is recursively enumerable if and only if .
Give an example of a set with but .
[You may assume that is recursively enumerable and that .]
Paper 1, Section II, F
commentFor give the definition of a partial recursive function in terms of basic functions, composition, recursion and minimisation.
Show that the following partial functions from to are partial recursive: (i) (ii) (iii)
Which of these can be defined without using minimisation?
What is the class of functions that can be defined using only basic functions and composition? [Hint: See which functions you can obtain and then show that these form a class that is closed with respect to the above.]
Show directly that every function in this class is computable.
Paper 1, Section I, D
commentTwo equal masses move along a straight line between two stationary walls. The mass on the left is connected to the wall on its left by a spring of spring constant , and the mass on the right is connected to the wall on its right by a spring of spring constant . The two masses are connected by a third spring of spring constant .
(a) Show that the Lagrangian of the system can be written in the form
where , for , are the displacements of the two masses from their equilibrium positions, and and are symmetric matrices that should be determined.
(b) Let
where and . Using Lagrange's equations of motion, show that the angular frequencies of the normal modes of the system are given by
where
Paper 1, Section I,
commentLet be an code. Define the parameters and . In each of the following cases define the new code and give its parameters.
(i) is the parity extension of .
(ii) is the punctured code (assume ).
(iii) is the shortened code (assume ).
Let . Suppose the parity extension of is transmitted through a binary symmetric channel where is the probability of a single-bit error in the channel. Calculate the probability that an error in the transmission of a single codeword is not noticed.
Paper 1, Section II,
commentLet be a finite alphabet and a random variable that takes each value with probability . Define the entropy of .
Suppose and is a decipherable code. Write down an expression for the expected word length of .
Prove that the minimum expected word length of a decipherable code satisfies
[You can use Kraft's and Gibbs' inequalities as long as they are clearly stated.]
Suppose a decipherable binary code has word lengths . Show that
Suppose is a source that emits sourcewords and is the probability that is emitted, where . Let and for . Let for . Now define a code by where is the (fractional part of the) binary expansion of to decimal places. Prove that this defines a decipherable code.
What does it mean for a code to be optimal? Is the code defined in the previous paragraph in terms of the necessarily optimal? Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section I, 9B
commentThe continuity, Euler and Poisson equations governing how non-relativistic fluids with energy density , pressure and velocity propagate in an expanding universe take the form
where and is the scale factor.
(a) Show that, for a homogeneous and isotropic flow with and , consistency of the Euler equation with the Poisson equation implies Raychaudhuri's equation.
(b) Explain why this derivation of Raychaudhuri's equation is an improvement over the derivation of the Friedmann equation using only Newtonian gravity.
(c) Consider small perturbations about a homogeneous and isotropic flow,
with . Show that, to first order in , the continuity equation can be written as
Paper 1, Section II, 15B
comment(a) Consider the following action for the inflaton field
Use the principle of least action to derive the equation of motion for the inflaton ,
where . [In the derivation you may discard boundary terms.]
(b) Consider a regime where is approximately constant so that the universe undergoes a period of exponential expansion during which . Show that can be written in terms of the spatial Fourier transform of as
(c) Define conformal time and determine the range of when . Show that can be written in terms of the conformal time as
(d) Let denote the state that in the far past was in the ground state of the standard harmonic oscillator with frequency . Assuming that the quantum variance of is given by
explain in which sense inflation naturally generates a scale-invariant power spectrum. [You may use that has dimensions of [length
Paper 1, Section II, 26F
comment(a) Let be a surface. Give a parametrisation-free definition of the first fundamental form of . Use this definition to derive a description of it in terms of the partial derivatives of a local parametrisation .
(b) Let be a positive constant. Show that the half-cone
is locally isometric to the Euclidean plane. [Hint: Use polar coordinates on the plane.]
(c) Define the second fundamental form and the Gaussian curvature of . State Gauss' Theorema Egregium. Consider the set
(i) Show that is a surface.
(ii) Calculate the Gaussian curvature of at each point. [Hint: Complete the square.]
Paper 1, Section II, A
comment(a) State the properties defining a Lyapunov function for a dynamical system . State Lyapunov's first theorem and La Salle's invariance principle.
(b) Consider the system
Show that for the origin is asymptotically stable, stating clearly any arguments that you use.
(c) Sketch the phase plane, (i) for and (ii) for , giving brief details of any reasoning and identifying the fixed points. Include the domain of stability of the origin in your sketch for case (ii).
(d) For show that the trajectory with , where , satisfies for . Show also that, for any , the trajectory cannot remain outside the region .
Paper 1, Section II, 37C
comment(a) An electromagnetic field is specified by a four-vector potential
Define the corresponding field-strength tensor and state its transformation property under a general Lorentz transformation.
(b) Write down two independent Lorentz scalars that are quadratic in the field strength and express them in terms of the electric and magnetic fields, and . Show that both these scalars vanish when evaluated on an electromagnetic plane-wave solution of Maxwell's equations of arbitrary wavevector and polarisation.
(c) Find (non-zero) constant, homogeneous background fields and such that both the Lorentz scalars vanish. Show that, for any such background, the field-strength tensor obeys
(d) Hence find the trajectory of a relativistic particle of mass and charge in this background. You should work in an inertial frame where the particle is at rest at the origin at and in which .
Paper 1, Section II, 39A
comment(a) Write down the Stokes equations for the motion of an incompressible viscous fluid with negligible inertia (in the absence of body forces). What does it mean that Stokes flow is linear and reversible?
(b) The region between two concentric rigid spheres of radii and is filled with fluid of large viscosity . The outer sphere is held stationary, while the inner sphere is made to rotate with angular velocity .
(i) Use symmetry and the properties of Stokes flow to deduce that , where is the pressure due to the flow.
(ii) Verify that both solid-body rotation and satisfy the Stokes equations with . Hence determine the fluid velocity between the spheres.
(iii) Calculate the stress tensor in the flow.
(iv) Deduce that the couple exerted by the fluid in on the fluid in , where , is given by
independent of the value of . [Hint: Do not substitute the form of and in until the end of the calculation.]
Comment on the form of this result for and for .
may use , where is the normal to
Paper 1, Section I, 7E
commentEvaluate the integral
stating clearly any standard results involving contour integrals that you use.
Paper 1, Section II, E
comment(a) Functions and are analytic in a connected open set with in a non-empty open subset . State the identity theorem.
(b) Let and be connected open sets with . Functions and are analytic on and respectively with on . Explain briefly what is meant by analytic continuation of and use part (a) to prove that analytic continuation to is unique.
(c) The function is defined by
where and is a positive integer. Use the method of contour deformation to construct the analytic continuation of into .
(d) The function is defined by
where and is a positive integer. Prove that experiences a discontinuity when crosses the real axis. Determine the value of this discontinuity. Hence, explain why cannot be used as an analytic continuation of .
Paper 1, Section II, 18I
comment(a) Let be fields, and a polynomial.
Define what it means for to be a splitting field for over .
Prove that splitting fields exist, and state precisely the theorem on uniqueness of splitting fields.
Let . Find a subfield of which is a splitting field for over Q. Is this subfield unique? Justify your answer.
(b) Let , where is a primitive 7 th root of unity.
Show that the extension is Galois. Determine all subfields .
For each subfield , find a primitive element for the extension explicitly in terms of , find its minimal polynomial, and write and .
Which of these subfields are Galois over ?
[You may assume the Galois correspondence, but should prove any results you need about cyclotomic extensions directly.]
Paper 1, Section II, C
commentThe Weyl tensor may be defined (in spacetime dimensions) as
where is the Riemann tensor, is the Ricci tensor and is the Ricci scalar.
(a) Show that and deduce that all other contractions vanish.
(b) A conformally flat metric takes the form
where is the Minkowski metric and is a scalar function. Calculate the Weyl tensor at a given point . [You may assume that at .]
(c) The Schwarzschild metric outside a spherically symmetric mass (such as the Sun, Earth or Moon) is
(i) Calculate the leading-order contribution to the Weyl component valid at large distances, , beyond the central spherical mass.
(ii) What physical phenomenon, known from ancient times, can be attributed to this component of the Weyl tensor at the location of the Earth? [This is after subtracting off the Earth's own gravitational field, and neglecting the Earth's motion within the solar system.] Briefly explain why your answer is consistent with the Einstein equivalence principle.
Paper 1, Section II, 17G
commentDefine the binomial random graph , where and .
(a) Let and let be the event that contains a copy of the complete graph . Show that if is such that then as .
(b) State Chebyshev's inequality. Show that if then .
(c) Let be a triangle with an added leaf vertex, that is
where are distinct. Let be the event that contains a copy of . Show that if then .
Paper 1 , Section II, 33D
comment(a) Let and be matrix-valued functions, whilst is a vector-valued function. Show that the linear system
is over-determined and derive a consistency condition on that is necessary for there to be non-trivial solutions.
(b) Suppose that
where is a scalar function. Obtain a partial differential equation for that is equivalent to your consistency condition from part (a).
(c) Now let and suppose is independent of . Show that the trace of is constant for all positive integers . Hence, or otherwise, construct a non-trivial first integral of the equation
Paper 1, Section II, 22H
commentLet be a separable Hilbert space and be a Hilbertian (orthonormal) basis of . Given a sequence of elements of and , we say that weakly converges to , denoted , if .
(a) Given a sequence of elements of , prove that the following two statements are equivalent:
(i) such that ;
(ii) the sequence is bounded in and , the sequence is convergent.
(b) Let be a bounded sequence of elements of . Show that there exists and a subsequence such that in .
(c) Let be a sequence of elements of and be such that . Show that the following three statements are equivalent:
(i) ;
(ii) ;
(iii) such that .
Paper 1, Section II, 16G
commentLet and be sets of propositional formulae.
(a) What does it mean to say that is deductively closed? What does it mean to say that is consistent? Explain briefly why if is inconsistent then some finite subset of is inconsistent.
(b) We write to mean for all . If and we say and are equivalent. If is equivalent to a finite set of formulae we say that is finitary. Show that if is finitary then there is a finite set with .
(c) Now let be deductively closed sets of formulae with
Show that each is consistent.
Let . Show that is consistent and deductively closed, but that it is not finitary.
Paper 1, Section I, 6E
comment(a) Consider a population of size whose per capita rates of birth and death are and , respectively, where and all parameters are positive constants.
(i) Write down the equation for the rate of change of the population.
(ii) Show that a population of size is stationary and that it is asymptotically stable.
(b) Consider now a disease introduced into this population, where the number of susceptibles and infectives, and , respectively, satisfy the equations
(i) Interpret the biological meaning of each term in the above equations and comment on the reproductive capacity of the susceptible and infected individuals.
(ii) Show that the disease-free equilibrium, and , is linearly unstable if
(iii) Show that when the disease-free equilibrium is unstable there exists an endemic equilibrium satisfying
and that this equilibrium is linearly stable.
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentLet be a family of functions with . Define the shattering coefficient and the dimension of .
Briefly explain why if and , then .
Prove that if is a vector space of functions with and we define
then .
Let be the set of all spheres in . Suppose . Show that
Hint: Consider the class of functions , where
Paper 1, Section II, 20G
commentLet , where
(a) Show that .
(b) Let . By considering the matrix of acting on by multiplication, or otherwise, show that is an algebraic integer, and that is a -basis for [The discriminant of is , and 307 is prime.]
(c) Compute the prime factorisation of the ideal (3) in . Is (2) a prime ideal of Justify your answer.
Paper 1, Section I, 1I
commentState Euler's criterion.
Let be an odd prime. Show that every primitive root modulo is a quadratic non-residue modulo .
Let be a Fermat prime, that is, a prime of the form for some . By evaluating , or otherwise, show that every quadratic non-residue modulo is a primitive root modulo . Deduce that 3 is a primitive root modulo for every Fermat prime .
Paper 1, Section II, E
commentLet with and define is not invertible .
The QR algorithm for computing is defined as follows. Set . For compute the factorization and set . (Here is an orthogonal matrix and is an upper triangular matrix.)
(a) Show that is related to the original matrix by the similarity transformation , where is orthogonal and is the QR factorization of with .
(b) Suppose that is symmetric and that its eigenvalues satisfy
Suppose, in addition, that the first two canonical basis vectors are given by , , where for and are the normalised eigenvectors of .
Let be the upper left corner of . Show that as , where and denotes the Hausdorff metric
[Hint: You may use the fact that for real symmetric matrices we have
Paper 1, Section II, B
comment(a) A group of transformations acts on a quantum system. Briefly explain why the Born rule implies that these transformations may be represented by operators obeying
for all , where .
What additional property does have when is a group of symmetries of the Hamiltonian? Show that symmetries correspond to conserved quantities.
(b) The Coulomb Hamiltonian describing the gross structure of the hydrogen atom is invariant under time reversal, . Suppose we try to represent time reversal by a unitary operator obeying , where is the time-evolution operator. Show that this would imply that hydrogen has no stable ground state.
An operator is antilinear if
for all and all , and antiunitary if, in addition,
where and . Show that if time reversal is instead represented by an antiunitary operator then the above instability of hydrogen is avoided.
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentLet be random variables with joint probability density function in a statistical model .
(a) Define the Fisher information . What do we mean when we say that the Fisher information tensorises?
(b) Derive the relationship between the Fisher information and the derivative of the score function in a regular model.
(c) Consider the model defined by and
where are i.i.d. random variables, and is a known constant. Compute the Fisher information . For which values of does the Fisher information tensorise? State a lower bound on the variance of an unbiased estimator in this model.
Paper 1, Section II, H
comment(a) State and prove Fatou's lemma. [You may use the monotone convergence theorem without proof, provided it is clearly stated.]
(b) Show that the inequality in Fatou's lemma can be strict.
(c) Let and be non-negative random variables such that almost surely as . Must we have ?
Paper 1, Section I,
commentAlice wishes to communicate to Bob a 1-bit message or chosen by her with equal prior probabilities . For (respectively ) she sends Bob the quantum state (respectively ). On receiving the state, Bob applies quantum operations to it, to try to determine Alice's message. The Helstrom-Holevo theorem asserts that the probability for Bob to correctly determine Alice's message is bounded by , where , and that this bound is achievable.
(a) Suppose that and , and that Bob measures the received state in the basis , where and , to produce his output 0 or 1 , respectively. Calculate the probability that Bob correctly determines Alice's message, and show that the maximum value of over choices of achieves the Helstrom-Holevo bound.
(b) State the no-cloning theorem as it applies to unitary processes and a set of two non-orthogonal states . Show that the Helstrom-Holevo theorem implies the validity of the no-cloning theorem in this situation.
Paper 1, Section II, I
comment(a) What does it mean to say that a representation of a group is completely reducible? State Maschke's theorem for representations of finite groups over fields of characteristic 0 . State and prove Schur's lemma. Deduce that if there exists a faithful irreducible complex representation of , then is cyclic.
(b) If is any finite group, show that the regular representation is faithful. Show further that for every finite simple group , there exists a faithful irreducible complex representation of .
(c) Which of the following groups have a faithful irreducible representation? Give brief justification of your answers.
(i) the cyclic groups a positive integer ;
(ii) the dihedral group ;
(iii) the direct product .
Paper 1, Section II, F
comment(a) Consider an open . Prove that a real-valued function is harmonic if and only if
for some analytic function .
(b) Give an example of a domain and a harmonic function that is not equal to the real part of an analytic function on . Justify your answer carefully.
(c) Let be a harmonic function on such that for every . Prove that is constant, justifying your answer carefully. Exhibit a countable subset and a non-constant harmonic function on such that for all we have and .
(d) Prove that every non-constant harmonic function is surjective.
Paper 1, Section I, J
commentLet . The probability density function of the inverse Gaussian distribution (with the shape parameter equal to 1 ) is given by
Show that this is a one-parameter exponential family. What is its natural parameter? Show that this distribution has mean and variance .
Paper 1, Section II, J
commentThe following data were obtained in a randomised controlled trial for a drug. Due to a manufacturing error, a subset of trial participants received a low dose (LD) instead of a standard dose (SD) of the drug.
(a) Below we analyse the data using Poisson regression:
(i) After introducing necessary notation, write down the Poisson models being fitted above.
(ii) Write down the corresponding multinomial models, then state the key theoretical result (the "Poisson trick") that allows you to fit the multinomial models using Poisson regression. [You do not need to prove this theoretical result.]
(iii) Explain why the number of degrees of freedom in the likelihood ratio test is 2 in the analysis of deviance table. What can you conclude about the drug?
(b) Below is the summary table of the second model:
(i) Drug efficacy is defined as one minus the ratio of the probability of worsening in the treated group to the probability of worsening in the control group. By using a more sophisticated method, a published analysis estimated that the drug efficacy is for the LD treatment and for the treatment. Are these numbers similar to what is obtained by Poisson regression? [Hint: , and , where is the base of the natural logarithm.]
(ii) Explain why the information in the summary table is not enough to test the hypothesis that the LD drug and the SD drug have the same efficacy. Then describe how you can test this hypothesis using analysis of deviance in .
Paper 1, Section II, 36C
commentThroughout this question you should consider a classical gas and assume that the number of particles is fixed.
(a) Write down the equation of state for an ideal gas. Write down an expression for the internal energy of an ideal gas in terms of the heat capacity at constant volume, .
(b) Starting from the first law of thermodynamics, find a relation between and the heat capacity at constant pressure, , for an ideal gas. Hence give an expression for .
(c) Describe the meaning of an adiabatic process. Using the first law of thermodynamics, derive the equation for an adiabatic process in the -plane for an ideal gas.
(d) Consider a simplified Otto cycle (an idealised petrol engine) involving an ideal gas and consisting of the following four reversible steps:
Adiabatic compression from volume to volume ;
: Heat injected at constant volume;
Adiabatic expansion from volume to volume ;
Heat extracted at constant volume.
Sketch the cycle in the -plane and in the -plane.
Derive an expression for the efficiency, , where is the work out, in terms of the compression ratio . How can the efficiency be maximized?
Paper 1, Section II, 30K
comment(a) What does it mean to say that a stochastic process is a martingale with respect to a filtration ?
(b) Let be a martingale, and let for . Suppose takes values in the set almost surely for all . Show that is a simple symmetric random walk, i.e. that the sequence is with
(c) Let be a martingale and let the bounded process be previsible.
Let and
Show that is a martingale.
(d) Let be a simple symmetric random walk with , and let
where is a positive integer. Let
Show that is a simple symmetric random walk.
(e) Let be a simple symmetric random walk with , and let . Compute for a positive integer .
Paper 1, Section I, 2H
commentWrite
and suppose that is a non-empty, closed, convex and bounded subset of with . By taking logarithms, or otherwise, show that there is a unique such that
for all .
Show that for all .
Identify the point in the case that has the property
and justify your answer.
Show that, given any , we can find a set , as above, with .
Paper 1, Section II, 40A
commentCompressible fluid of equilibrium density , pressure and sound speed is contained in the region between an inner rigid sphere of radius and an outer elastic sphere of equilibrium radius . The elastic sphere is made to oscillate radially in such a way that it exerts a spherically symmetric, perturbation pressure on the fluid at , where and the frequency is sufficiently small that
You may assume that the acoustic velocity potential satisfies the wave equation
(a) Derive an expression for .
(b) Hence show that the net radial component of the acoustic intensity (wave-energy flux) is zero when averaged appropriately in a way you should define. Interpret this result physically.
(c) Briefly discuss the possible behaviour of the system if the forcing frequency is allowed to increase to larger values.
For a spherically symmetric variable