Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/iii/paper-310/1/a/solution

Use units , and write for the Hubble parameter, with dots denoting cosmic time. Differentiating the Friedmann equation gives
On an interval where , use the Hubble parameter identity and the Friedmann acceleration equation to find
Substitution cancels the curvature term and gives the continuity equation
The cosmological perfect-fluid continuity equation extends by continuity through a regular isolated turning point. Physically it states that the change of energy in a comoving volume is the negative of the pressure work: .
For separately conserved cosmological fluids, each component obeys this equation individually. A constant equation-of-state parameter therefore gives
where the present scale factor is normalized to . Thus the component density laws are
The extra factor for radiation in cosmology is the cosmological redshift of each photon's energy; pressureless matter has only number dilution, while the specified dark energy is a cosmological constant.
The critical density at a given expansion rate is the total density that makes the spatial curvature vanish:
These cosmological density parameters use the critical density at that same time. Put and . The Friedmann equation yields
Consequently the fractional-density evolution, rather than just the component-density evolution, is
In particular . The simple powers of alone apply to , or to , not to the instantaneous cosmological density parameters. At a recollapse turning point , those instantaneous ratios are undefined even though the component densities remain finite.

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