Part IB, {{ year }}
Part IB 2015
Paper 3, Section I, G
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what is meant by a uniformly continuous function on a subset of a metric space. Show that every continuous function on a closed, bounded interval is uniformly continuous. [You may assume the Bolzano-Weierstrass theorem.]
Suppose that a function is continuous and tends to a finite limit at . Is necessarily uniformly continuous on Give a proof or a counterexample as appropriate.
Paper 4, Section I, G
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what is meant for two norms on a vector space to be Lipschitz equivalent.
Let denote the vector space of continuous functions with continuous first derivatives and such that for in some neighbourhood of the end-points and 1 . Which of the following four functions define norms on (give a brief explanation)?
Among those that define norms, which pairs are Lipschitz equivalent? Justify your answer.
Paper 2, Section II, B
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) A function has a pole of order at . Derive a general expression for the residue of at involving and its derivatives.
(ii) Using contour integration along a contour in the upper half-plane, determine the value of the integral
Paper 1, Section II, B
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Show that transformations of the complex plane of the form
always map circles and lines to circles and lines, where and are complex numbers such that .
(ii) Show that the transformation
maps the unit disk centered at onto itself.
(iii) Deduce a conformal transformation that maps the non-concentric annular domain , to a concentric annular domain.
Paper 3, Section I, B
Part IB, 2015 commentFind the Fourier transform of the function
using an appropriate contour integration. Hence find the Fourier transform of its derivative, , and evaluate the integral
Paper 4, Section II, B
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) State and prove the convolution theorem for Laplace transforms of two realvalued functions.
(ii) Let the function , be equal to 1 for and zero otherwise, where is a positive parameter. Calculate the Laplace transform of . Hence deduce the Laplace transform of the convolution . Invert this Laplace transform to obtain an explicit expression for .
[Hint: You may use the notation
Paper 2, Section I, A
Part IB, 2015 commentIn a constant electric field a particle of rest mass and charge has position and velocity . At time , the particle is at rest at the origin. Including relativistic effects, calculate .
Sketch a graph of versus , commenting on the limit.
Calculate as an explicit function of and find the non-relativistic limit at small times .
Paper 4, Section I, A
Part IB, 2015 commentFrom Maxwell's equations, derive the Biot-Savart law
giving the magnetic field produced by a steady current density that vanishes outside a bounded region .
[You may assume that you can choose a gauge such that the divergence of the magnetic vector potential is zero.]
Paper 1, Section II, A
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Write down the Lorentz force law for due to an electric field and magnetic field acting on a particle of charge moving with velocity .
(ii) Write down Maxwell's equations in terms of (the speed of light in a vacuum), in the absence of charges and currents.
(iii) Show that they can be manipulated into a wave equation for each component of .
(iv) Show that Maxwell's equations admit solutions of the form
where and are constant vectors and is a constant (all real). Derive a condition on and relate and .
(v) Suppose that a perfect conductor occupies the region and that a plane wave with is incident from the vacuum region . Write down boundary conditions for the and fields. Show that they can be satisfied if a suitable reflected wave is present, and determine the total and fields in real form.
(vi) At time , a particle of charge and mass is at moving with velocity . You may assume that the particle is far enough away from the conductor so that we can ignore its effect upon the conductor and that . Give a unit vector for the direction of the Lorentz force on the particle at time .
(vii) Ignoring relativistic effects, find the magnitude of the particle's rate of change of velocity in terms of and at time . Why is this answer inaccurate?
Paper 3, Section II, A
Part IB, 2015 commentA charge density fills the region of 3-dimensional space , where is the radial distance from the origin and is a constant. Compute the electric field in all regions of space in terms of , the total charge of the region. Sketch a graph of the magnitude of the electric field versus (assuming that ).
Now let . Derive the surface charge density in terms of and and explain how a finite surface charge density may be obtained in this limit. Sketch the magnitude of the electric field versus in this limit. Comment on any discontinuities, checking a standard result involving for this particular case.
A second shell of equal and opposite total charge is centred on the origin and has a radius . Sketch the electric potential of this system, assuming that it tends to 0 as .
Paper 2, Section II, A
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider the magnetic field
where and are unit vectors in the and directions, respectively. Imposing that this satisfies the expected equations for a static magnetic field in a vacuum, find and .
A circular wire loop of radius , mass and resistance lies in the plane with its centre on the -axis at and a magnetic field as given above. Calculate the magnetic flux through the loop arising from this magnetic field and also the force acting on the loop when a current is flowing around the loop in a clockwise direction about the -axis.
At , the centre of the loop is at the origin, travelling with velocity , where . Ignoring gravity and relativistic effects, and assuming that is only the induced current, find the time taken for the speed to halve in terms of and . By what factor does the rate of heat generation change in this time?
Where is the loop as as a function of
Paper 1, Section I, B
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider a spherical bubble of radius in an inviscid fluid in the absence of gravity. The flow at infinity is at rest and the bubble undergoes translation with velocity . We assume that the flow is irrotational and derives from a potential given in spherical coordinates by
where is measured with respect to . Compute the force, , acting on the bubble. Show that the formula for can be interpreted as the acceleration force of a fraction of the fluid displaced by the bubble, and determine the value of .
Paper 2, Section I, G
Part IB, 2015 commentShow that the map given by
is differentiable everywhere and find its derivative.
Stating accurately any theorem that you require, show that has a differentiable local inverse at a point if and only if
Paper 2, Section I, B
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider the two-dimensional velocity field with
(i) Show that the flow is incompressible and irrotational.
(ii) Derive the velocity potential, , and the streamfunction, .
(iii) Plot all streamlines passing through the origin.
(iv) Show that the complex function (where ) can be written solely as a function of the complex coordinate and determine that function.
Paper 1, Section II, B
Part IB, 2015 commentA fluid layer of depth and dynamic viscosity is located underneath a fluid layer of depth and dynamic viscosity . The total fluid system of depth is positioned between a stationary rigid plate at and a rigid plate at moving with speed , where is constant. Ignore the effects of gravity.
(i) Using dimensional analysis only, and the fact that the stress should be linear in , derive the expected form of the shear stress acted by the fluid on the plate at as a function of and .
(ii) Solve for the unidirectional velocity profile between the two plates. State clearly all boundary conditions you are using to solve this problem.
(iii) Compute the exact value of the shear stress acted by the fluid on the plate at . Compare with the results in (i).
(iv) What is the condition on the viscosity of the bottom layer, , for the stress in (iii) to be smaller than it would be if the fluid had constant viscosity in both layers?
(v) Show that the stress acting on the plate at is equal and opposite to the stress on the plate at and justify this result physically.
Paper 4, Section II, B
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider a steady inviscid, incompressible fluid of constant density in the absence of external body forces. A cylindrical jet of area and speed impinges fully on a stationary sphere of radius with . The flow is assumed to remain axisymmetric and be deflected into a conical sheet of vertex angle .
(i) Show that the speed of the fluid in the conical sheet is constant.
(ii) Use conservation of mass to show that the width of the fluid sheet at a distance from point of impact is given by
(iii) Use Euler's equation to derive the momentum integral equation
for a closed surface with normal where is the th component of the velocity field in cartesian coordinates and is the pressure.
(iv) Use the result from (iii) to calculate the net force on the sphere.
Paper 3, Section II, B
Part IB, 2015 commentA source of sound induces a travelling wave of pressure above the free surface of a fluid located in the domain as
with . Here and are fixed real numbers. We assume that the flow induced in the fluid is irrotational.
(i) State the linearized equation of motion for the fluid and the free surface, , with all boundary conditions.
(ii) Solve for the velocity potential, , and the height of the free surface, . Verify that your solutions are dimensionally correct.
(iii) Interpret physically the behaviour of the solution when .
Paper 1, Section I, F
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Give a model for the hyperbolic plane. In this choice of model, describe hyperbolic lines.
Show that if are two hyperbolic lines and are points, then there exists an isometry of the hyperbolic plane such that and .
(ii) Let be a triangle in the hyperbolic plane with angles and . What is the area of ?
Paper 3, Section , F
Part IB, 2015 commentState the sine rule for spherical triangles.
Let be a spherical triangle with vertices , and , with angles and at the respective vertices. Let , and be the lengths of the edges and respectively. Show that if and only if . [You may use the cosine rule for spherical triangles.] Show that this holds if and only if there exists a reflection such that and .
Are there equilateral triangles on the sphere? Justify your answer.
Paper 3, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be a Möbius transformation on the Riemann sphere .
(i) Show that has either one or two fixed points.
(ii) Show that if is a Möbius transformation corresponding to (under stereographic projection) a rotation of through some fixed non-zero angle, then has two fixed points, , with .
(iii) Suppose has two fixed points with . Show that either corresponds to a rotation as in (ii), or one of the fixed points, say , is attractive, i.e. as for any .
Paper 2, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) For each of the following subsets of , explain briefly why it is a smooth embedded surface or why it is not.
(b) Let be given by
and let . You may assume that is a smooth embedded surface.
Find the first fundamental form of this surface.
Find the second fundamental form of this surface.
Compute the Gaussian curvature of this surface.
Paper 4, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be a curve in parameterized by arc length, and consider the surface of revolution in defined by the parameterization
In what follows, you may use that a curve in , with , is a geodesic if and only if
(i) Write down the first fundamental form for , and use this to write down a formula which is equivalent to being a unit speed curve.
(ii) Show that for a given , the circle on determined by is a geodesic if and only if .
(iii) Let be a curve in such that parameterizes a unit speed curve that is a geodesic in . For a given time , let denote the angle between the curve and the circle on determined by . Derive Clairault's relation that
is independent of .
Paper 3, Section I, F
Part IB, 2015 commentState two equivalent conditions for a commutative ring to be Noetherian, and prove they are equivalent. Give an example of a ring which is not Noetherian, and explain why it is not Noetherian.
Paper 1, Section II, G
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what it means for a sequence of functions to converge uniformly on to a function .
Let , where are positive constants. Determine all the values of for which converges pointwise on . Determine all the values of for which converges uniformly on .
Let now . Determine whether or not converges uniformly on .
Let be a continuous function. Show that the sequence is uniformly convergent on if and only if .
[If you use any theorems about uniform convergence, you should prove these.]
Paper 4, Section I,
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be a commutative ring. Define what it means for an ideal to be prime. Show that is prime if and only if is an integral domain.
Give an example of an integral domain and an ideal , such that is not an integral domain.
Paper 2, Section ,
Part IB, 2015 commentGive four non-isomorphic groups of order 12 , and explain why they are not isomorphic.
Paper 1, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Give the definition of a -Sylow subgroup of a group.
(ii) Let be a group of order . Show that there are at most two possibilities for the number of 3-Sylow subgroups, and give the possible numbers of 3-Sylow subgroups.
(iii) Continuing with a group of order 2835 , show that is not simple.
Paper 4, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 commentFind such that is a field . Show that for your choice of , every element of has a cube root in the field .
Show that if is a finite field, then the multiplicative group is cyclic.
Show that is a field. How many elements does have? Find a generator for .
Paper 3, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 commentCan a group of order 55 have 20 elements of order 11? If so, give an example. If not, give a proof, including the proof of any statements you need.
Let be a group of order , with and primes, . Suppose furthermore that does not divide . Show that is cyclic.
Paper 2, Section II, F
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) Consider the homomorphism given by
Describe the image of this homomorphism as an abstract abelian group. Describe the quotient of by the image of this homomorphism as an abstract abelian group.
(b) Give the definition of a Euclidean domain.
Fix a prime and consider the subring of the rational numbers defined by
where 'gcd' stands for the greatest common divisor. Show that is a Euclidean domain.
Paper 4, Section I, E
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine the dual space of a vector space . Given a basis of define its dual and show it is a basis of .
Let be a 3-dimensional vector space over and let be the basis of dual to the basis for . Determine, in terms of the , the bases dual to each of the following: (a) , (b) .
Paper 2, Section I,
Part IB, 2015 commentLet denote a quadratic form on a real vector space . Define the rank and signature of .
Find the rank and signature of the following quadratic forms. (a) . (b) .
(c) .
Paper 1, Section I, E
Part IB, 2015 commentLet and be finite dimensional vector spaces and a linear map. Suppose is a subspace of . Prove that
where denotes the rank of and denotes the restriction of to . Give examples showing that each inequality can be both a strict inequality and an equality.
Paper 1, Section II, E
Part IB, 2015 commentDetermine the characteristic polynomial of the matrix
For which values of is invertible? When is not invertible determine (i) the Jordan normal form of , (ii) the minimal polynomial of .
Find a basis of such that is the matrix representing the endomorphism in this basis. Give a change of basis matrix such that .
Paper 4, Section II, G
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider the space of bounded real sequences with the norm . Show that for every bounded sequence in there is a subsequence which converges in every coordinate, i.e. the sequence of real numbers converges for each . Does every bounded sequence in have a convergent subsequence? Justify your answer.
Let be the subspace of real sequences such that converges. Is complete in the norm (restricted from to ? Justify your answer.
Suppose that is a real sequence such that, for every , the series converges. Show that
Suppose now that is a real sequence such that, for every , the series converges. Show that
Paper 4, Section II, E
Part IB, 2015 commentSuppose and are subspaces of a vector space . Explain what is meant by and and show that both of these are subspaces of .
Show that if and are subspaces of a finite dimensional space then
Determine the dimension of the subspace of spanned by the vectors
Write down a matrix which defines a linear map with in the kernel and with image .
What is the dimension of the space spanned by all linear maps
(i) with in the kernel and with image contained in ,
(ii) with in the kernel or with image contained in ?
Paper 3, Section II, E
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be matrices over a field . We say are simultaneously diagonalisable if there exists an invertible matrix such that is diagonal for all . We say the matrices are commuting if for all .
(i) Suppose are simultaneously diagonalisable. Prove that they are commuting.
(ii) Define an eigenspace of a matrix. Suppose are commuting matrices over a field . Let denote an eigenspace of . Prove that for all .
(iii) Suppose are commuting diagonalisable matrices. Prove that they are simultaneously diagonalisable.
(iv) Are the diagonalisable matrices over simultaneously diagonalisable? Explain your answer.
Paper 2, Section II, E
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Suppose is a matrix that does not have as an eigenvalue. Show that is non-singular. Further, show that commutes with .
(ii) A matrix is called skew-symmetric if . Show that a real skewsymmetric matrix does not have as an eigenvalue.
(iii) Suppose is a real skew-symmetric matrix. Show that is orthogonal with determinant 1 .
(iv) Verify that every orthogonal matrix with determinant 1 which does not have as an eigenvalue can be expressed as where is a real skew-symmetric matrix.
Paper 4, Section I, H
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be independent identically distributed random variables with . Let , where is a constant. For each of the following cases, determine whether or not is a Markov chain: (a) ; (b) ; (c) .
In each case, if is a Markov chain, explain why, and give its state space and transition matrix; if it is not a Markov chain, give an example to demonstrate that it is not.
Paper 3, Section I, H
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what is meant by a communicating class and a closed class in a Markov chain.
A Markov chain with state space has transition matrix
Write down the communicating classes for this Markov chain and state whether or not each class is closed.
If , let be the smallest such that . Find for and . Describe the evolution of the chain if .
Paper 2, Section II, H
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) What does it mean for a transition matrix and a distribution to be in detailed balance? Show that if and are in detailed balance then .
(b) A mathematician owns bicycles, which she sometimes uses for her journey from the station to College in the morning and for the return journey in the evening. If it is fine weather when she starts a journey, and if there is a bicycle available at the current location, then she cycles; otherwise she takes the bus. Assume that with probability , , it is fine when she starts a journey, independently of all other journeys. Let denote the number of bicycles at the current location, just before the mathematician starts the th journey.
(i) Show that is a Markov chain and write down its transition matrix.
(ii) Find the invariant distribution of the Markov chain.
(iii) Show that the Markov chain satisfies the necessary conditions for the convergence theorem for Markov chains and find the limiting probability that the mathematician's th journey is by bicycle.
[Results from the course may be used without proof provided that they are clearly stated.]
Paper 1, Section II, H
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider a particle moving between the vertices of the graph below, taking steps along the edges. Let be the position of the particle at time . At time the particle moves to one of the vertices adjoining , with each of the adjoining vertices being equally likely, independently of previous moves. Explain briefly why is a Markov chain on the vertices. Is this chain irreducible? Find an invariant distribution for this chain.
Suppose that the particle starts at . By adapting the transition matrix, or otherwise, find the probability that the particle hits vertex before vertex .
Find the expected first passage time from to given no intermediate visit to .
[Results from the course may be used without proof provided that they are clearly stated.]
Paper 4, Section I, 5C
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) The convolution of two functions is related to their Fourier transforms by
Derive Parseval's theorem for Fourier transforms from this relation.
(b) Let and
(i) Calculate the Fourier transform of .
(ii) Determine how the behaviour of in the limit depends on the value of . Briefly interpret the result.
Paper 2, Section I, C
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Write down the trigonometric form for the Fourier series and its coefficients for a function extended to a -periodic function on .
(ii) Calculate the Fourier series on of the function where is a real constant. Take the limit with in the coefficients of this series and briefly interpret the resulting expression.
Paper 3, Section I,
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) From the defining property of the function,
for any function , prove that
(i)
(ii) for ,
(iii) If is smooth and has isolated zeros where the derivative , then
(b) Show that the function defined by
is the function.
Paper 3, Section II, G
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what it means for a function to be differentiable at with derivative .
State and prove the chain rule for the derivative of , where is a differentiable function.
Now let be a differentiable function and let where is a constant. Show that is differentiable and find its derivative in terms of the partial derivatives of . Show that if holds everywhere in , then for some differentiable function
Paper 1, Section II, C
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Briefly describe the Sturm-Liouville form of an eigenfunction equation for real valued functions with a linear, second-order ordinary differential operator. Briefly summarize the properties of the solutions.
(ii) Derive the condition for self-adjointness of the differential operator in (i) in terms of the boundary conditions of solutions to the Sturm-Liouville equation. Give at least three types of boundary conditions for which the condition for self-adjointness is satisfied.
(iii) Consider the inhomogeneous Sturm-Liouville equation with weighted linear term
on the interval , where and are real functions on and is the weighting function. Let be a Green's function satisfying
Let solutions and the Green's function satisfy the same boundary conditions of the form at at are not both zero and are not both zero) and likewise for for the same constants and . Show that the Sturm-Liouville equation can be written as a so-called Fredholm integral equation of the form
where and depends on and the forcing term . Write down in terms of an integral involving and .
(iv) Derive the Fredholm integral equation for the Sturm-Liouville equation on the interval
with .
Paper 3, Section II, C
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) Consider the Poisson equation with forcing term on the infinite domain with . Derive the Green's function for this equation using the divergence theorem. [You may assume without proof that the divergence theorem is valid for the Green's function.]
(ii) Consider the Helmholtz equation
where is a real constant. A Green's function for this equation can be constructed from of (i) by assuming where and is a regular function. Show that and that satisfies the equation
(iii) Take the Green's function with the specific solution to Eq. ( ) and consider the Helmholtz equation on the semi-infinite domain . Use the method of images to construct a Green's function for this problem that satisfies the boundary conditions
(iv) A solution to the Helmholtz equation on a bounded domain can be constructed in complete analogy to that of the Poisson equation using the Green's function in Green's 3rd identity
where denotes the volume of the domain, its boundary and the outgoing normal derivative on the boundary. Now consider the homogeneous Helmholtz equation on the domain with boundary conditions at and
where and and are real constants. Construct a solution in integral form to this equation using cylindrical coordinates with .
Paper 2, Section II, C
Part IB, 2015 comment(i) The Laplace operator in spherical coordinates is
Show that general, regular axisymmetric solutions to the equation are given by
where are constants and are the Legendre polynomials. [You may use without proof that regular solutions to Legendre's equation are given by with and non-negative integer .]
(ii) Consider a uniformly charged wire in the form of a ring of infinitesimal width with radius and a constant charge per unit length . By Coulomb's law, the electric potential due to a point charge at a point a distance from the charge is
where is a constant. Let the -axis be perpendicular to the circle and pass through the circle's centre (see figure). Show that the potential due to the charged ring at a point on the -axis at location is given by
(iii) The potential generated by the charged ring of (ii) at arbitrary points (excluding points directly on the ring which can be ignored for this question) is determined by Laplace's equation . Calculate this potential with the boundary condition , where . [You may use without proof that
for . Furthermore, the Legendre polynomials are normalized such that
Paper 4, Section II, 17C
Part IB, 2015 commentDescribe the method of characteristics to construct solutions for 1st-order, homogeneous, linear partial differential equations
with initial data prescribed on a curve .
Consider the partial differential equation (here the two independent variables are time and spatial direction )
with initial data .
(i) Calculate the characteristic curves of this equation and show that remains constant along these curves. Qualitatively sketch the characteristics in the diagram, i.e. the axis is the horizontal and the axis is the vertical axis.
(ii) Let denote the value of a characteristic at time and thus label the characteristic curves. Let denote the value at time of a characteristic with given . Show that becomes a non-monotonic function of (at fixed ) at times , i.e. has a local minimum or maximum. Qualitatively sketch snapshots of the solution for a few fixed values of and briefly interpret the onset of the non-monotonic behaviour of at .
Paper 3, Section I,
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what it means for a topological space to be (i) connected (ii) path-connected.
Prove that any path-connected space is connected. [You may assume the interval is connected.
Give a counterexample (without justification) to the converse statement.
Paper 2, Section I,
Part IB, 2015 commentLet and be topological spaces and a continuous map. Suppose is a subset of such that is closed (where denotes the closure of ). Prove that
Give an example where and are as above but is not closed.
Paper 1, Section II, E
Part IB, 2015 commentGive the definition of a metric on a set and explain how this defines a topology on .
Suppose is a metric space and is an open set in . Let and such that the open ball and . Prove that .
Explain what it means (i) for a set to be dense in , (ii) to say is a base for a topology .
Prove that any metric space which contains a countable dense set has a countable basis.
Paper 4, Section II, E
Part IB, 2015 commentExplain what it means for a metric space to be (i) compact, (ii) sequentially compact. Prove that a compact metric space is sequentially compact, stating clearly any results that you use.
Let be a compact metric space and suppose satisfies for all . Prove that is surjective, stating clearly any results that you use. [Hint: Consider the sequence for .]
Give an example to show that the result does not hold if is not compact.
Paper 1, Section I, 6D
Part IB, 2015 commentLet
where is a real parameter. Find the factorization of the matrix . Give the constraint on for A to be positive definite.
For , use this factorization to solve the system via forward and backward substitution.
Paper 4, Section I, D
Part IB, 2015 commentGiven distinct points , let be the real polynomial of degree that interpolates a continuous function at these points. State the Lagrange interpolation formula.
Prove that can be written in the Newton form
where is the divided difference, which you should define. [An explicit expression for the divided difference is not required.]
Explain why it can be more efficient to use the Newton form rather than the Lagrange formula.
Paper 2, Section II, G
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be normed spaces with norms . Show that for a map and , the following two statements are equivalent:
(i) For every given there exists such that whenever
(ii) for each sequence .
We say that is continuous at if (i), or equivalently (ii), holds.
Let now be a normed space. Let be a non-empty closed subset and define . Show that
In the case when with the standard Euclidean norm, show that there exists such that .
Let be two disjoint closed sets in . Must there exist disjoint open sets such that and ? Must there exist and such that for all and ? For each answer, give a proof or counterexample as appropriate.
Paper 1, Section II, 18D
Part IB, 2015 commentDetermine the real coefficients such that
is exact when is any real polynomial of degree 2 . Check explicitly that the quadrature is exact for with these coefficients.
State the Peano kernel theorem and define the Peano kernel . Use this theorem to show that if , and are chosen as above, then
Paper 3, Section II, D
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine the QR factorization of an matrix . Explain how it can be used to solve the least squares problem of finding the vector which minimises , where , and is the Euclidean norm.
Explain how to construct and by the Gram-Schmidt procedure. Why is this procedure not useful for numerical factorization of large matrices?
Let
Using the Gram-Schmidt procedure find a QR decomposition of A. Hence solve the least squares problem giving both and .
Paper 2, Section II, D
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine the linear stability domain for a numerical method to solve . What is meant by an -stable method? Briefly explain the relevance of these concepts in the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations.
Consider
where . What is the order of this method?
Find the linear stability domain of this method. For what values of is the method A-stable?
Paper 1, Section I, H
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) Consider a network with vertices in and directed edges in . Suppose that 1 is the source and is the sink. Let , be the capacity of the edge from vertex to vertex for . Let a cut be a partition of into and with and . Define the capacity of the cut . Write down the maximum flow problem. Prove that the maximum flow is bounded above by the minimum cut capacity.
(b) Find the maximum flow from the source to the sink in the network below, where the directions and capacities of the edges are shown. Explain your reasoning.
Paper 2, Section I, H
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine what it means to say that a set is convex. What is meant by an extreme point of a convex set ?
Consider the set given by
Show that is convex, and give the coordinates of all extreme points of .
For all possible choices of and , find the maximum value of subject to .
Paper 4, Section II, 20H
Part IB, 2015 commentSuppose the recycling manager in a particular region is responsible for allocating all the recyclable waste that is collected in towns in the region to the recycling centres in the region. Town produces lorry loads of recyclable waste each day, and recycling centre needs to handle lorry loads of waste a day in order to be viable. Suppose that . Suppose further that is the cost of transporting a lorry load of waste from town to recycling centre . The manager wishes to decide the number of lorry loads of recyclable waste that should go from town to recycling centre , , in such a way that all the recyclable waste produced by each town is transported to recycling centres each day, and each recycling centre works exactly at the viable level each day. Use the Lagrangian sufficiency theorem, which you should quote carefully, to derive necessary and sufficient conditions for to minimise the total cost under the above constraints.
Suppose that there are three recycling centres and , needing 5,20 and 20 lorry loads of waste each day, respectively, and suppose there are three towns and producing 20,15 and 10 lorry loads of waste each day, respectively. The costs of transporting a lorry load of waste from town to recycling centres and are and , respectively. The corresponding costs for town are and , while for town they are and . Recycling centre has reported that it currently receives 5 lorry loads of waste per day from town , and recycling centre has reported that it currently receives 10 lorry loads of waste per day from each of towns and c. Recycling centre has failed to report. What is the cost of the current arrangement for transporting waste from the towns to the recycling centres? Starting with the current arrangement as an initial solution, use the transportation algorithm (explaining each step carefully) in order to advise the recycling manager how many lorry loads of waste should go from each town to each of the recycling centres in order to minimise the cost. What is the minimum cost?
Paper 3, Section II, H
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider the linear programming problem :
where and are in is a real matrix, is in and denotes transpose. Derive the dual linear programming problem . Show from first principles that the dual of is .
Suppose that and . Write down the dual and find the optimal solution of the dual using the simplex algorithm. Hence, or otherwise, find the optimal solution of .
Suppose that is changed to . Give necessary and sufficient conditions for still to be the optimal solution of . If , find the range of values for for which is still the optimal solution of .
Paper 4, Section I, D
Part IB, 2015 commentThe radial wavefunction for an electron in a hydrogen atom satisfies the equation
Briefly explain the origin of each term in this equation.
The wavefunctions for the ground state and the first radially excited state, both with , can be written as
where and are normalisation constants. Verify that is a solution of , determining and finding the corresponding energy eigenvalue . Assuming that is a solution of , compare coefficients of the dominant terms when is large to determine the corresponding energy eigenvalue . [You do not need to find or , nor show that is a solution of
A hydrogen atom makes a transition from the first radially excited state to the ground state, emitting a photon. What is the angular frequency of the emitted photon?
Paper 3, Section , D
Part IB, 2015 commentA quantum-mechanical system has normalised energy eigenstates and with non-degenerate energies and respectively. The observable has normalised eigenstates,
where is a positive real constant. Determine .
Initially, at time , the state of the system is . Write down an expression for , the state of the system with . What is the probability that a measurement of energy at time will yield ?
For the same initial state, determine the probability that a measurement of at time will yield and the probability that it will yield .
Paper 1, Section II, D
Part IB, 2015 commentWrite down expressions for the probability density and the probability current for a particle in one dimension with wavefunction . If obeys the timedependent Schrödinger equation with a real potential, show that
Consider a stationary state, , with
where are real. Evaluate for this state in the regimes and .
Consider a real potential,
where is the Dirac delta function, and . Assuming that is continuous at , derive an expression for
Hence calculate the reflection and transmission probabilities for a particle incident from with energy
Paper 4, Section I, G
Part IB, 2015 commentLet be a continuous function defined on a connected open set . Prove carefully that the following statements are equivalent.
(i) There exists a holomorphic function on such that .
(ii) holds for every closed curve in .
Paper 3, Section II, D
Part IB, 2015 commentDefine the angular momentum operators for a particle in three dimensions in terms of the position and momentum operators and . Write down an expression for and use this to show that where . What is the significance of these two commutation relations?
Let be both an eigenstate of with eigenvalue zero and an eigenstate of with eigenvalue . Show that is also an eigenstate of both and and determine the corresponding eigenvalues.
Find real constants and such that
is an eigenfunction of with eigenvalue zero and an eigenfunction of with an eigenvalue which you should determine. [Hint: You might like to show that
Paper 2, Section II, D
Part IB, 2015 commentA quantum-mechanical harmonic oscillator has Hamiltonian
where is a positive real constant. Show that and are Hermitian operators.
The eigenfunctions of can be written as
where is a polynomial of degree with even (odd) parity for even (odd) and . Show that for all of the states .
State the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and verify it for the state by computing and . [Hint: You should properly normalise the state.]
The oscillator is in its ground state when the potential is suddenly changed so that . If the wavefunction is expanded in terms of the energy eigenfunctions of the new Hamiltonian, , what can be said about the coefficient of for odd ? What is the probability that the particle is in the new ground state just after the change?
[Hint: You may assume that if then and .]
Paper 1, Section I, H
Part IB, 2015 commentSuppose that are independent normally distributed random variables, each with mean and variance 1 , and consider testing against . Explain what is meant by the critical region, the size and the power of a test.
For , derive the test that is most powerful among all tests of size at most . Obtain an expression for the power of your test in terms of the standard normal distribution function .
[Results from the course may be used without proof provided they are clearly stated.]
Paper 2, Section I, H
Part IB, 2015 commentSuppose that, given , the random variable has , Suppose that the prior density of is , for some known . Derive the posterior density of based on the observation .
For a given loss function , a statistician wants to calculate the value of that minimises the expected posterior loss
Suppose that . Find in terms of in the following cases:
(a) ;
(b) .
Paper 4, Section II, H
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider a linear model where is an vector of observations, is a known matrix, is a vector of unknown parameters and is an vector of independent normally distributed random variables each with mean zero and unknown variance . Write down the log-likelihood and show that the maximum likelihood estimators and of and respectively satisfy
denotes the transpose . Assuming that is invertible, find the solutions and of these equations and write down their distributions.
Prove that and are independent.
Consider the model and . Suppose that, for all and , and that , are independent random variables where is unknown. Show how this model may be written as a linear model and write down and . Find the maximum likelihood estimators of and in terms of the . Derive a confidence interval for and for .
[You may assume that, if is multivariate normal with , then and are independent.]
Paper 1, Section II, H
Part IB, 2015 commentSuppose are independent identically distributed random variables each with probability mass function , where is an unknown parameter. State what is meant by a sufficient statistic for . State the factorisation criterion for a sufficient statistic. State and prove the Rao-Blackwell theorem.
Suppose that are independent identically distributed random variables with
where is a known positive integer and is unknown. Show that is unbiased for .
Show that is sufficient for and use the Rao-Blackwell theorem to find another unbiased estimator for , giving details of your derivation. Calculate the variance of and compare it to the variance of .
A statistician cannot remember the exact statement of the Rao-Blackwell theorem and calculates in an attempt to find an estimator of . Comment on the suitability or otherwise of this approach, giving your reasons.
[Hint: If and are positive integers then, for
Paper 3, Section II, H
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) Suppose that are independent identically distributed random variables, each with density for some unknown . Use the generalised likelihood ratio to obtain a size test of against .
(b) A die is loaded so that, if is the probability of face , then , and . The die is thrown times and face is observed times. Write down the likelihood function for and find the maximum likelihood estimate of .
Consider testing whether or not for this die. Find the generalised likelihood ratio statistic and show that
where you should specify and in terms of . Explain how to obtain an approximate size test using the value of . Explain what you would conclude (and why ) if .
Paper 1, Section I, A
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider a frictionless bead on a stationary wire. The bead moves under the action of gravity acting in the negative -direction and the wire traces out a path , connecting points and . Using a first integral of the Euler-Lagrange equations, find the choice of which gives the shortest travel time, starting from rest. You may give your solution for and separately, in parametric form.
Paper 3, Section , A
Part IB, 2015 comment(a) Define what it means for a function to be convex.
(b) Define the Legendre transform of a convex function , where . Show that is a convex function.
(c) Find the Legendre transform of the function , and the domain of .
Paper 2, Section II, A
Part IB, 2015 commentA right circular cylinder of radius and length has volume and total surface area . Use Lagrange multipliers to do the following:
(a) Show that, for a given total surface area, the maximum volume is
determining the integer in the process.
(b) For a cylinder inscribed in the unit sphere, show that the value of which maximises the area of the cylinder is
determining the integers and as you do so.
(c) Consider the rectangular parallelepiped of largest volume which fits inside a hemisphere of fixed radius. Find the ratio of the parallelepiped's volume to the volume of the hemisphere.
[You need not show that suitable extrema you find are actually maxima.]
Paper 3, Section II, G
Part IB, 2015 commentState the argument principle.
Let be an open set and a holomorphic injective function. Show that for each in and that is open.
Stating clearly any theorems that you require, show that for each and a sufficiently small ,
defines a holomorphic function on some open disc about .
Show that is the inverse for the restriction of to .
Paper 4, Section II, A
Part IB, 2015 commentDerive the Euler-Lagrange equation for the integral
where is allowed to float, and takes a given value.
Given that is finite, and , find the stationary value of
Paper 1, Section I, B
Part IB, 2015 commentConsider the analytic (holomorphic) functions and on a nonempty domain where is nowhere zero. Prove that if for all in then there exists a real constant such that for all in .