Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-astrophysics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/3/d/solution

A power spectrum describes the variance of Fourier amplitudes as a function of wavenumber. In a statistically homogeneous continuum convention,
The paper's is the corresponding finite-volume or normalization-suppressed statement. For statistical isotropy only remains. The dimensionless variance per logarithmic interval is , a different quantity.
The response changes around , or : the velocity contribution to the relativistic constraint and the effective growth equation change relative importance across the horizon-scale transition. Large-scale is approximately constant for its regular mode, while short-scale density perturbations grow gravitationally. A smooth initial potential spectrum can therefore acquire a different dependence in the density spectrum. For illustration, a constant matter-era potential gives , so sufficiently small-scale has four additional powers of relative to , while the very large-scale limits have the same power dependence.
This identifies a dynamical transition, not a universal prediction of the primordial spectrum or an exact spectral break at for arbitrary initial data. The familiar late-time matter-spectrum turnover also retains the history of horizon entry around radiation–matter equality; it is not generically tied to the current Hubble scale. Initial conditions and the intervening expansion history are needed for an actual spectrum.

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