Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2003/iii/paper-58/5/c/solution

Vary the action with compactly supported variations and integrate by parts. Its overall normalization does not affect the equation of motion:
Here , so the massless scalar field obeys
Separate a spatial Fourier mode as . Its mode equation is . With conformal time , and , it becomes
For , put and . Direct differentiation reduces the equation to
the Spherical Bessel function equation with order one. Hence the complete classical mode basis is
Since and , an equivalent complex basis is
The classical action does not select one frequency branch or a quantum vacuum. A real field has conjugate-related coefficients at opposite wavevectors. The zero mode, which is not obtained by treating these two basis functions as independent at , is
At late times one independent solution freezes and the other decays as . These are minimally coupled massless modes; the supplied action has no curvature-coupling term, so it should not be replaced by the conformally coupled wave equation.

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