Accumulated free-streaming distance in a radiation-dominated universe

ID: accumulated-free-streaming-distance-in-a-radiation-dominated-universe

Suppose a collisionless particle has momentum during pure radiation domination. Since , integrating gives the displayed comoving distance. The physical distance at observation is , . The printed expression without is consequently a physical distance, or a comoving distance in coordinates normalized to at observation. Its ratio tends to one in the relativistic limit and to in the nonrelativistic limit. The accumulated scale differs from an instantaneous velocity-over-expansion-rate estimate.

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