Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 310 1 b i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
For a constant equation-of-state parameter , the cosmological perfect-fluid continuity equation integrates to . Comparing the given powers yieldsThis constant-equation-of-state density scaling describes a cosmic string network and a cosmological domain wall network. An intuitive check is that the energy in a fixed comoving cell grows in proportion to the total string length, , or total wall area, , while the physical cell volume grows as . Thus the densities scale as and respectively. These effective equations of state use the noninteracting, statistically isotropic network assumptions of the problem.