Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-astrophysics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/3/c/solution
Past exam of the astrophysics course of the University of Oxford 2015 3 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
For pressureless matter, obeys . The Euler equation givesThe constraint is nowConsequentlyFor a matter-dominated flat background, and . On small scales but : the last term must not be dropped with . The equation becomesSince is small relative to the growing density term on these scales, this recovers .
There is a printed error in the requested super-horizon decaying mode. At , and the leading equation is , henceThe printed fails its own equation: for , the left side is at leading order. The decaying solution would instead result from using the radiation-era background in this limiting damping term. Finite- corrections restore terms of relative order and do not repair the wrong leading power.
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