Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2018/iii/paper-312/3/ii/solution

Let . Rotations around and the vanishing trace imply that the angular integral in the scalar neutrino anisotropic stress has the form . Contract with and use . By the Orthogonality of Legendre polynomials,
Only the quadrupole in the neutrino Boltzmann hierarchy contributes. Its phase factor is , so the supplied stress definition becomes
Comparing with the chosen normalization gives
The sign and factor here follow jointly from the stress convention and the unweighted Legendre polynomial coefficients; they should not be transferred unchanged to a differently normalized hierarchy.

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