Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2014/iii/paper-56/2/solution

Let describe the halo and let . The cosmic baryon fraction is , so the specified settled fraction gives . The specific angular momentum constraint at the disk edge is
To infer an actual circular speed one must specify the disk's radial mass distribution: enclosed mass does not determine a disc rotation curve. Introduce a finite geometry coefficient by . A rounded, centrally concentrated disk permits a monopole estimate at its outer edge; it is an explicit approximation, not the spherical shell theorem applied exactly to a razor-thin disk. Ignore the force of the unsettled baryons as well as the dark matter within the disk. Using , the angular-momentum estimate of a self-gravitating galactic disk gives
An exact disk answer cannot be fixed by total disk mass alone; the dependence on records that missing input.
For the numerical virial radius of a dark-matter halo, adopt mean density times the critical density at the formation epoch. This conventional definition gives
The supplied expansion law gives , and hence . Taking yields
The corresponding virial mass of a dark-matter halo is , and . Other overdensity conventions give at fixed .
Interpret the wavelength separation as an observed-frame local mean near the redshift in question. Since Lyman-alpha absorption appears at , the incidence is
Assume one counted absorption system per intercepted disk, no unrelated forest systems or missed absorbers, unity neutral covering fraction, and a locally slowly varying population. Let be the proper interception cross-section and the comoving number density. The proper density is , and the proper line element along the light path is . Thus the absorber incidence and comoving number density relation is
For a thin circular disk, the projected area is . Isotropically oriented normals have , so the random-orientation absorbing-disk cross-section is . Consequently
If all disks are taken face-on instead, . Generally the random-orientation result scales as and is divided by the neutral covering fraction. The finite mean redshift spacing is sizable, so a precision inference would integrate the incidence over the actual redshift interval rather than identify it with one local value.
There is also a halo abundance mass-budget bound on this formal result. The present mean matter density for these parameters is . Distinct haloes of this mass cannot have , even if every matter particle belonged to them. Yet the inferred random-orientation population has
Even the face-on estimate exceeds this bound by about twenty-one. The numerical incidence result is conditional; the supplied population assumptions are not cosmologically consistent under this standard virial and compact-disk estimate. A larger neutral-gas absorption radius, a different absorber population, or different physical inputs are needed. For example, random orientations would require an absorbing radius at least about merely to reach the all-matter upper bound, much larger than the calculated centrifugal radius. This check does not change the algebraic answer, but prevents treating it as a realizable population.

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