PHYSICS

IIT-JAM Physics Paper - 2009

Instructions:
• Attempt all the 25 questions.
• Questions 1-15 (Objective questions) carry six marks each and each questions 16-25 (Subjective
questions) carry twenty one marks each.
1  V 
1. Isothermal compressibility  T of a substance is defined as T   V  P  . Its value for n mole of an ideal
 T
gas will be
1 n 1 n
(a) (b) (c)  (d) 
P P P P
2. A space crew has a life support system that can last only for 1000 hours. What minimum speed would be
required for safe travel of the crew between two space stations separated by a fixed distance of 1.08×1012
km?
c c c c
(a) (b) (c) (d)
3 2 2 5
3. An oscillating voltage V  t   V0 cos t is applied across a parallel plate capacitor having a plate separation d.
The displacement current density through the capacitor is:

 0V0 cos t  0 0V0 cos t  0 0V0 sin  t  0V0 sin t

(a) (b) (c)  (d) 
d d d d
R1
4. Two spherical nuclie have mass numbers 216 and 64 with their radii R1 and R2 respectively. The ratio R is:
2
(a) 1.0 (b) 1.5 (c) 2.0 (d) 2.5
5. In the Fourier series of the periodic function (shown in the figure)
f  x   sin x

   n cos nx   n sin nx 
n 0

Which of the following coefficients are nonzero?

(a)  n for odd n (b)  n for even n (c)  n for odd n (d)  n for even n

1
 PHYSICS

6. A particle is moving in space with O as the origin. Some possible expressions for its position, velocity and
acceleration in cylindrical coordinates   ,  , z  are given below. Which one of these is correct?
  d d dz
(a) Positions vector r  ˆ  ˆ  zzˆ and velocity   ˆ   ˆ  zˆ .
dt dt dt
d d dz  d 2 d  d  d 2 z
(b) velocity   ˆ    zˆ and acceleration a  2 ˆ     zˆ
dt dt dt dt dt  dt  dt 2
  d d dz
(c) Position vector r   pˆ  zzˆ and velocity   ˆ   ˆ  zˆ
dt dt dt
  d d dz
(d) Position vector r  ˆ  ˆ  zzˆ and velocity   ˆ   ˆ   zˆ
dt dt dt
7. Which one of the following is an INCORRECT boolean expression?

(a) PQ  PQ  Q (b)  P  Q   P  Q   P

(c) P  P  Q   Q (d)  PQR  PQR  PQR  PQR   Q

8. Monochromatic X rays of wavelength 1Å are incident on a simple cubic crystal. The first order Brag reflection
from (311) plane occurs at an angle of 30º from the plane. The lattice parameter of the crystal in Å is:
11
(a) 1 (b) 3 (c) (d) 11
2
  1
9.  
An electron field E  r   arˆ   sin  cos ˆ exists in space. What will be the total charge enclosed in a
r
sphere of unit radius centered at the origin?
(a) 4 0 a (b) 4 0     (c) 4 0     (d) 4 0 

10. A thin massless rod of length 2L has equal point masses ‘m’ attached at its ends (see figure). The rod is rotating
about an axis passing through its centre and making angle  with it. the magnitude of the rate of change of its

dL
angular momentum dt is:

(b) 2m  sin 

2 2
(a) 2m2 2 sin  cos 
(c) 2m2 2 sin 2  (d) 2m2 2 cos2 

2
 PHYSICS

11. A battery with a constant emf  and internal resistance ri provides power to an external circuit with a load
resistance made up by combining resistance RL and 2RL in parallel. For what value of RL will the power
delivered to the load be maximum?
ri ri
(a) RL  (b) RL 
4 2
2 3
(c) RL  ri (d) RL  ri
3 2
12. Among the following displacement versus time plots, which ones may represent an overdamped oscillator?

(P) (Q)

(R) (S)

(a) Only (P) and (Q) (b) Only (P) and (R)
(c) Only (P) and (S) (d) Only (P), (R), (S)

13. A wav packet in a certain medium is constructed by superposing waves of frequency  around 0 = 100
and the corresponding wave-number k with k0 = 10 as given in the table below
 k
81.00 9.0
90.25 9.5
100.00 10.0
110.25 10.5
121.00 11.0
Find the ratio vg / g p of the group velocity vg and the phase velocity vp.
1 3
(a) (b) 1 (c) (d) 2
2 2
14. A box containing 2 moles of diatomic ideal gas at temperature T0 is connected to another identical box contain-
ing 2 moles of a monoatomic ideal gas at temperature 5T0. There are no thermal losses and the heat capacity
of the boxe is negligible. Find the final temperature of the mixture of the gases (ignore the vibrational degrees of
freedom for the diatomic molecules)
(a) T0 (b) 1.5 T0 (c) 2.5 T0 (d) 3 T0.

3
 PHYSICS

15. Moment of inertia of a solid cylinder of mass m, height ‘h’ and radius ‘r’ about an axis (shown in the figure by
dashed line) passing through its centre of mass and perpendicular to its symmetry axis is:

1 2 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 2
(a) mr  mh 2 (b) mr  mh (c) mr  mh 2 (d) mr  mh
4 12 2 8 2 12 2 4

16. A parallel beam of light of diameter 1.8 cm contains two wavelengths 4999.75Å and 5000.25Å. The light is
incident perpendicular on a large diffraction grating with 5000 lines per centimeter.
(a) Using Rayleigh criteriion, find the least order at which the two wavelengths are resoleved.
(b) What will be the angular separation (in radiuns) of the two wavelengths at order n = 2?
17. A block of mass ‘M’ is free to slide on a frictionless horizontal floor. The block has a cylinderical cavity of
radius R in the middle of it. The centre of mass (CM) of the block lies on the dashed line passing through the
centre of the cavity (see figure). Initially the CM of the block is at a horizontal distance X1 from the origin. Now
a point particle of mass ‘m’ is released from A into the cavity. There is negligible friction between the particle
and the cavity surface. When the particle reaches piont B, the CM of the block is at a distance X2 from the
origin. Find (X2–X1).

18. The electric field of an electromagnetic wave propagating through vacuum is given by
 

E  r , t   E0 zˆ cos 100 3 x  100 y  t 
(a) What is the wave vector k̂ ? Hence, find the value of  .

(b) At the time t = 0 there is a point charge ‘q’ with velocity v  v0 xˆ at the origin. What is the instantaneous
Lorentz force acting on the particle?

4
 PHYSICS

19. Consider two infinitely long wires parallel to the z-axis carrying the same current I. One wire passes through the
point L with coordinates (–1, 1) and the other through M with coordinates (–1, –1) in the XY plane as shown
in the figure. The direction of the current in both the wires is in the positive z-direction.

 
(a) Find the value of  B.dl along the semicircular closed path of the radius 2 units shown in the figure.
(b) Third long wire carrying current I and also perpendicular to the XY plane is placed at a point N with
coordinates (x, 0) so that the magnetic field at the origin is doubled. Find x and the direction of the current
in the third wire.
20. A particle of mass ‘m’ is confined in a one dimensional box of unit length. At time t = 0 the wavefunction of the
particle is   x, 0   A sin 2 x cos  x where A is the normalization constant.

(a) Write the wavefunction   x, t  at a later time t.

(b) Find the expectation values of momentum and energy at t = 0.
21. For the transistor circuit shown in the figure  dc  100 and VBE  0.7 V . Determine the base current IB, the
collector-emitter voltage VCE, the emitter voltage VE, the emitter voltage VE, the base voltage VB and the
saturation current ICsat.

5
 PHYSICS

 a 
22. The equation of state of one mole of a van der Waals gas is  p  2  V  b   RT and its internal energy
 V 
a
U  T ,V  is given by U  T , V   U 0  CV T  , where U 0 and CV can be taken as constans.
V
R
(a) Prove that in a reversible adiabatic process the temperature and volume satisfy the equation T V  b  CV

= constant.
(b) Calculate the change in entropy of the gas when it undergoes a reversible isothermal expansion from volume
V0 to 2V0.
0 1
23. (a) Find the normalized eigenvector  of the matrix M    , corresponding to its positive eigenvalue.
1 0
0 i 
(b) The normalized eigenvectors of the matrix N    are 1 and  2 with the eigenvalues 1 and 2
i 0 
respectively and 1  2 . If the eigenvector  obtained in part (a) is expressed as   P1  Q 2 . Find the
constants P and Q.
24. A particle of mass ‘m’ is shown is thrown vertically up from the ground with initial speed V0. As it moves it
49experiences a drag force Fdrag  kv 2 , where v is the speed of the particle and k is a constant UP to what
height does the particle go and what its speed when it reaches the ground again?

25. Consider the radiactive transformation A  B  C with decay constants,  A and B for elements A and B;
C is a stable element. Assume that at t = 0, NA = N0, NB = 0 and NC = 0, where NA, NB and NC are the number
of atoms of A, B and C, respectively.
(a) Show that at any later time t the number of atoms NA of element B will be
N0 A
NB t    e   At  e B t 
B   A  
(b) Sketch the qualitatively the variation of NA, NB and NC with time on three separate plots.