The four contributions have distinct physical origins. The intrinsic photon temperature perturbation is : a local blackbody radiation energy density satisfies , so its first-order fractional perturbation is four times the fractional temperature perturbation. The endpoint cosmological Newtonian potential term is the gravitational redshift between the emitting plasma and the observer; escaping a negative potential well lowers the measured photon energy. Together with the intrinsic contribution it produces the ordinary Sachs-Wolfe effect. The term is the Doppler CMB anisotropy, caused by the plasma's line-of-sight peculiar velocity at last scattering, with the source's direction convention.
Finally, is the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. A photon passing through a static potential well gains energy on entry and loses it on exit, with no net shift. When the potential evolves while the photon crosses, the two shifts fail to cancel. The factor two is the sum of the temporal and spatial scalar-potential contributions when anisotropic stress is negligible, so the two potentials are equal. The prime is a partial derivative at fixed comoving coordinate; it is not the total derivative along the light ray.
For a low-cosmological redshift galaxy sample, the intrinsic, endpoint-potential and last-scattering Doppler CMB anisotropy terms are localized near , whereas the galaxy density contrast is measured much nearer us. In the Limber approximation their radial kernels have no overlap, so their leading cross correlations vanish. The late Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect samples the same nearby evolving potentials as the galaxies, giving the desired late-time CMB-matter cross correlation. The early Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect near matter-radiation equality is likewise radially separated.
This is the leading linear, separated-kernel description intended here. The primary Cosmic microwave background anisotropy and late density contrast share primordial initial conditions, so their exact large-angle correlation need not be identically zero outside the Limber approximation. Additional secondary effects, such as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, can also correlate with galaxies in real maps; they are absent from the stipulated linear expression.
The sample is expected to show the stronger late Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect correlation, for comparable galaxy bias and selection quality. In the stated flat Lambda-CDM model, neglecting radiation in cosmology,
At the universe is nearly matter-dominated universe, and , so the cosmological Newtonian potential is nearly constant. A photon then receives little net Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect shift. At , dark energy has substantially suppressed the linear growth factor relative to , so and the potentials decay appreciably.
For a quantitative indication, the approximation gives at and at . Thus fractional potential evolution, , is much larger for the nearby sample. The high-cosmological redshift matter power spectrum also has a smaller growth amplitude. The entire correlation still depends on , galaxy bias, , and the matter power spectrum at the sampled wavenumber; redshift alone does not fix a universal numerical ratio or guarantee an ordering at every multipole. The robust expectation is
Preserving synchronous gauge means and . The first equation is , and integration of the second gives the complete residual scalar transformation for each nonzero Fourier mode:
Changing the lower limit only changes . Taking the trace and trace-free longitudinal part of gives
Consequently and . The cosmological Newtonian potential changes by
while its spatial counterpart changes by
Thus both potentials are invariant under residual synchronous-gauge freedom, although and individually are not.
For the exact mode equation write and . Substitution gives
The positive incoming-frequency solution is the Newtonian-potential Hankel modes in stiff contraction branch
For large , . Part (d) and the normalized scalar incoming mode give
At late times, , so the leading growing cosmological Newtonian potential is . Hence the vacuum-normalized Newtonian spectrum in stiff contraction is
Fourier-volume conventions can modify the overall normalization but not this exponent. The dimensionless power per logarithmic interval is , corresponding to if written as . The question asks the dimensional mode variance's exponent, which is ; it is also important not to substitute a curvature-perturbation spectrum for the specified cosmological Newtonian potential.
For a nonzero Fourier mode in synchronous gauge, write . Under the passive displacement , cancellation of spatial scalar shear requires , and cancellation of the shift requires . The resulting cosmological Newtonian potential is and the spatial potential is . Both remain unchanged under residual synchronous-gauge freedom, for which and .