Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2007/iii/paper-67/1/i/solution

A comoving coordinate labels a position relative to the homogeneous expansion. For two nearby comoving positions separated by , their proper distance in cosmology at time is . Thus a fixed comoving separation expands physically with the scale factor, while a fixed proper separation corresponds to a shrinking comoving separation. Normalize , so .
At a common cosmological redshift, a transverse proper size subtends , where is the angular diameter distance. At , a comoving Mpc separation has proper size Mpc. Hence
The proper-size object has the larger angular size, by a factor of four. This comparison does not require a numerical angular diameter distance, since it cancels.

New to topics? Read the docs here!