Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/ii/paper-4/9b/solution
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2019 ii Paper 4 9B Solution by
Codex 0 Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
For a relativistic species the supplied relation makes its entropy density proportional to . The fermion-to-boson thermal integral ratio gives the factor for each fermionic degree of freedom, so the electromagnetic plasma immediately before electron-positron annihilation in cosmology hasAfter annihilation only the two photon polarizations remain, so .
The neutrinos have already undergone neutrino decoupling. They therefore receive none of the electron-positron entropy and cool as . In the still-coupled electromagnetic plasma, cosmological entropy conservation gives . If and denote the common temperature and scale factor just before annihilation, then at a later scale factor ,Dividing gives the Cosmic neutrino background temperature ratio
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