Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/ii/paper-4/10d/solution

In the nonrelativistic dilute regime, and the Fermi-Dirac distribution reduces to the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. Hence
Differentiating the Gaussian integral with respect to its coefficient gives . Therefore
The degeneracy factor here is the one in the supplied integral, namely one. Substituting , and dividing by the supplied photon density gives
At this is about . The relic is already nonrelativistic at decoupling and becomes still colder as its momenta redshift, making it a possible cold dark matter component if it is stable and interacts sufficiently weakly with light.
For orientation, write . Ignoring subsequent entropy transfer, its density relative to baryons would be . With the cosmological baryon-to-photon ratio of order , this is of order four, demonstrating the right cosmological scale. The measured dark-to-baryonic density ratio is likewise of order five; an observational reference is arxiv.org/abs/1807.06209 . This is a candidate abundance argument, not an exact relic-density calculation: photon heating after decoupling changes , and stability and interaction properties were not specified. The supplied mass and freeze-out parameter alone therefore do not establish a precise fit.

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