Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 53 1 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The particle horizon is the greatest distance from which a light signal could have reached the observer since the initial cosmic time . Its comoving radius and its radial proper distance at time areHere proper distance is measured along the spatial slice, rather than by the transverse area of a sphere. The Hubble parameter, deceleration parameter and cosmological density parameter areThe last expression defines the critical density. For blackbody radiation, , so the Friedmann acceleration equation gives . ConsequentlyThis is the radiation relation between deceleration and density. It does not require spatial flatness.
For the open radiation universe particle horizon, write . The cosmological continuity equation gives , while the present Friedmann equation gives . ThusTaking the big-bang endpoint and using , the present radial proper distance becomesThereforeThe formula applies to . Its flat-radiation limit is , agreeing with and . The divergence as reflects the unbounded past conformal interval of the limiting empty open model; that endpoint is not a radiation-filled universe.
The Horizon problem concerns the nearly uniform temperature of widely separated parts of the Cosmic microwave background. In a purely decelerating Hot Big Bang model, their past light cones at last scattering do not overlap far enough to explain this agreement by thermal contact. During cosmic inflation, accelerated expansion shrinks the comoving Hubble radius. A patch initially small enough for causal communication can be stretched to encompass the later observable universe. Reheating converts the inflationary energy into a hot plasma with correlated initial conditions across that patch. Enough inflation must occur before the observable scales leave the Hubble radius; inflation cannot establish contact between regions that were never initially causally related.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 53 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Before electron-positron annihilation in cosmology, the pair has two spin states, just as photons do, and the fermionic number integral gives at equal temperature. The factor follows by expanding into an alternating exponential series: its integral is of the bosonic one.
After neutrino decoupling, cosmological entropy conservation in the photon-electron plasma changes its relativistic entropy count from to . The decoupled neutrinos do not share this heating. HenceThese counts include both the new neutrino and its antineutrino; another factor of two would double count them. This is the number density of a relativistic neutrino relative to photons, evaluated after photon heating.
They are nonrelativistic today, so the relic-neutrino energy density is dominated by rest mass:The number follows from the supplied critical density, without a Hubble-unit convention. It is conditional on the thermal history stated above; a sterile, colder or nonthermally produced state need not have this abundance.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 53 2 Solution 2026-10-07
The density bound on a relativistically decoupled massive relic is already decisive for a conventional near-critical cosmological density budget: the thermal pair alone gives . The same additional relativistic pair increases the effective number of neutrino species by one during nucleosynthesis and raises the primordial helium mass fraction, so its expansion effect supplies another constraint. Thus a stable, fully thermalized MeV-decoupling neutrino pair of this mass is incompatible with the usual cosmological density budget.
This conclusion is not a prohibition on every particle with that mass. Earlier decoupling followed by entropy dilution, a reduced production abundance, or interactions that change the assumed thermal history can alter both tests. At fixed mass, requiring this pair to contribute no more than the supplied critical density would demand a number density at most of the standard value, or a thermal temperature at most of the standard neutrino temperature. No numerical abundance or exclusion independent of these assumptions follows from the mass and equal particle-antiparticle counts alone.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 60 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Take the retained disc mass to be the cosmic baryon fraction of the total dark-matter halo mass: , where . Adopt and describe the disc gravity by . The structure coefficient must be stated: the scale-free Mestel disc gives when its flat rotation speed and enclosed mass are used, while a finite disc requires boundary and thickness information. The equality of edge specific angular momentum gives , with . Combining these relations gives the angular-momentum-conserving self-gravitating disc radius:With the commonly intended approximation,The corresponding masses are and , where is the solar mass.
For a definite formation estimate, assume the dark-matter halo acquired this mass and radius at virial equilibrium, retained them afterward, and had mean density with . This uses the matter-dominated spherical-collapse model as an approximation to the specified matter-plus-vacuum cosmology. Since ,The approximate distance therefore gives formation modestly before observation. Using the numerical rather than approximate distance integral gives , within the accuracy of these structural assumptions. The calculation also assumes inclination-corrected spectroscopy, negligible disc pressure support, conserved edge specific angular momentum, no substantial later accretion or mergers, and no significant baryon loss.
This formation redshift is model-dependent, not uniquely fixed by the stated disc data. Keeping explicit gives . In particular, replacing the mean-density convention by times the critical density gives and , later than the observation. That inconsistent chronological result cannot be silently used as the formation epoch.
There is a further idealization in applying exactly at the edge: an abruptly truncated razor-thin disc with nonzero edge surface density of a disk has a logarithmically divergent in-plane force at that edge. Locally the available mass occupies a half-plane, and its radial contribution is proportional to , with no opposite exterior half-plane to cancel it. Finite thickness or a smooth taper removes that sharp-edge force singularity of a thin disk. Thus is an explicitly qualified Mestel disc or monopole-scale approximation, not an exact finite-disc calculation; enclosed mass does not determine a disc rotation curve.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 55 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
For a pressureless spherical mass shell with fixed enclosed mass and no shell crossing, the shell theorem gives . A cosmological constant is absent in the Einstein-de Sitter universe. Parametric differentiation givesSince , the equation of motion holds providedThe expanding branch runs from to the turnaround of spherical collapse ; the recollapsing branch runs from to . HenceThe common bang-time origin selects the growing overdensity, without an extra arbitrary shift in the time parameter.
In the Einstein-de Sitter universe, and . An unperturbed homogeneous sphere containing the same mass thus has . Comparing its volume with the perturbed sphere givesAt maximum expansion,For the non-dissipative, homologous spherical-collapse model, the potential energy of a uniform sphere is . At turnaround the bulk kinetic energy is zero, so . At virial equilibrium, gives . Conservation of energy implies , and therefore . This comparison assumes the same potential-energy structure coefficient; it is the usual top-hat model rather than an exact claim about every halo profile.
Halving the radius multiplies the density by eight. During the interval to , the background density falls by four. ThusThe formal pressureless trajectory reaches zero radius; the physical virialized object instead has a finite radius. Its density is evaluated at the same collapse epoch, not at the instantaneous singular solution's density.
For a physical estimated virial radius and enclosed mass, . Equating this to gives a halo density estimate of formation redshift:In the pure Einstein-de Sitter universe, equals the present critical density. The inference assumes the measured density retains the collapse-epoch normalization. Later accretion, mergers and a changing virial-radius convention can change it, so it is a model-dependent formation estimate rather than a unique historical date.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2013 iii Paper 55 4 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The prescribed photon budget requires a collapsed mass fraction , assuming baryons trace the collapsed mass fraction and using the supplied effective photon yield. No extra photon-escape or recombination correction should be counted on top of this stipulated budget.
For spectral slope , . The mass-scale measurement givesBoth relevant epochs are matter-dominated, so the linear growth factor ratio is , independent of any present-day normalization convention. Thus . The Press-Schechter formalism givesUsing the supplied inverse value,This is the photon-budget reionization threshold in the specified toy model, not a measurement of the full astrophysical reionization history.
To estimate the characteristic mass, use the non-dissipative spherical-collapse model result . At this high redshift the background matter density is practically the critical density. Circular virial velocity then obeysConsequentlyFor , this gives and , with physical virial radius about .
At the threshold mass the halo peak height is , soThe present mean matter density is . Hence the differential abundance per logarithmic mass interval is about andRounded inputs and the supplied approximate factor justify quoting about . The corresponding physical separation is about at this epoch. The requested halo spacing from a differential mass function uses a logarithmic mass bin of order unity; it is not obtained by identifying with that differential abundance. A cumulative number density above the threshold requires a separate mass integral.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 49 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let , and retain the assumption that these neutrinos remain massless. Constancy of the neutrino degeneracy parameter gives . The condition on the critical density therefore yields the critical-density bound on massless neutrino degeneracyFor the standard instantaneous-neutrino decoupling approximation before electron-positron annihilation in cosmology, cosmological entropy conservation heats photons relative to the decoupled neutrinos. The electromagnetic entropy degrees of freedom change from to , givingThis numerical value requires that thermal-history assumption; the bound in terms of is the general answer if large degeneracy changes decoupling or subsequent entropy transfer. Setting would instead give . For equally degenerate flavors with the same temperature, the leading bound becomes under the standard temperature assumption. The neglected thermal corrections make a small change near this loose energy-density limit; this is not a detailed Big Bang nucleosynthesis bound.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 56 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Let describe the halo and let . The cosmic baryon fraction is , so the specified settled fraction gives . The specific angular momentum constraint at the disk edge isTo infer an actual circular speed one must specify the disk's radial mass distribution: enclosed mass does not determine a disc rotation curve. Introduce a finite geometry coefficient by . A rounded, centrally concentrated disk permits a monopole estimate at its outer edge; it is an explicit approximation, not the spherical shell theorem applied exactly to a razor-thin disk. Ignore the force of the unsettled baryons as well as the dark matter within the disk. Using , the angular-momentum estimate of a self-gravitating galactic disk givesAn exact disk answer cannot be fixed by total disk mass alone; the dependence on records that missing input.
For the numerical virial radius of a dark-matter halo, adopt mean density times the critical density at the formation epoch. This conventional definition givesThe supplied expansion law gives , and hence . Taking yieldsThe corresponding virial mass of a dark-matter halo is , and . Other overdensity conventions give at fixed .
Interpret the wavelength separation as an observed-frame local mean near the redshift in question. Since Lyman-alpha absorption appears at , the incidence isAssume one counted absorption system per intercepted disk, no unrelated forest systems or missed absorbers, unity neutral covering fraction, and a locally slowly varying population. Let be the proper interception cross-section and the comoving number density. The proper density is , and the proper line element along the light path is . Thus the absorber incidence and comoving number density relation isFor a thin circular disk, the projected area is . Isotropically oriented normals have , so the random-orientation absorbing-disk cross-section is . ConsequentlyIf all disks are taken face-on instead, . Generally the random-orientation result scales as and is divided by the neutral covering fraction. The finite mean redshift spacing is sizable, so a precision inference would integrate the incidence over the actual redshift interval rather than identify it with one local value.
There is also a halo abundance mass-budget bound on this formal result. The present mean matter density for these parameters is . Distinct haloes of this mass cannot have , even if every matter particle belonged to them. Yet the inferred random-orientation population hasEven the face-on estimate exceeds this bound by about twenty-one. The numerical incidence result is conditional; the supplied population assumptions are not cosmologically consistent under this standard virial and compact-disk estimate. A larger neutral-gas absorption radius, a different absorber population, or different physical inputs are needed. For example, random orientations would require an absorbing radius at least about merely to reach the all-matter upper bound, much larger than the calculated centrifugal radius. This check does not change the algebraic answer, but prevents treating it as a realizable population.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2014 iii Paper 56 3 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Near the accretor assume fully ionized hydrogen, tight electric coupling between protons and electrons, isotropic radiation and opacity dominated by Thomson scattering. The gravitational force on an electron–proton pair is approximately ; the outward radiation pressure force is . Balancing them gives the Eddington luminosityWriting defines the radiative efficiency of black-hole accretion. In the approximation that the radiated rest-mass fraction is ignored in the mass bookkeeping, , so at the Eddington accretion rateThis is the printed approximate Salpeter time; for the adopted efficiency. More exactly , giving with . The difference is a ten-percent-level convention here, not a change from exponential growth. Continuous fuelling, constant efficiency and unit Eddington ratio are additional idealizations.
Next normalize the ionizing spectrum rather than replacing every photon by a threshold photon. For above ,Here is Planck's constant, distinct from the cosmological . The mean ionizing photon energy of a power-law spectrum is therefore . With ionizing luminosity fraction , the hydrogen-ionizing photon production rate is .
Assume a sharp spherical ionization front, homogeneous initially neutral hydrogen at the cosmic mean baryon density, escape fraction one, one primary ionization per photon, and no recombinations or secondary ionizations. The ionization-front growth from an exponentially brightening source is then fixed by photon conservation. In the printed approximate mass convention,Take the stated separation to be a proper separation at the seed-formation epoch, and take the distant halo to follow the expansion on this large scale. Its initial separation defines a fixed comoving radius . The number of hydrogen nuclei initially within that radius isAlthough the proper density subsequently falls, this comoving hydrogen inventory is constant. Thus the photon count does not require freezing the expansion for the entire growth interval.
The supplied critical density gives , so for the initial proper-distance interpretation. Equating requiresand thereforeLight propagation adds a retarded-time correction of order a few million years, small compared with this growth time; it should not be replaced by instantaneous propagation when modelling the very early front. Expansion increases the proper distance to the comoving halo during the wait, but not the required comoving photon inventory. If the unspecified distance is instead a comoving distance, the inventory is smaller by and the corresponding answer is . A distance held at a fixed proper radius until arrival would need a different evolving-volume treatment.
Using exact rest-mass bookkeeping changes to and to . The proper-at-formation case then gives about , and the comoving-distance case about . These modest changes are smaller than the uncertainties of the sharp-front, no-recombination model. In particular real absorption of the high-energy tail, secondary electrons and a nonunit escape fraction would require radiative-transfer corrections.
The small halo initially holds cool gas in hydrostatic equilibrium. Photoionization deposits energy far above its virial binding scale. With the emitted mean energy, the excess per primary ionization is ; if all were converted to thermal energy of one electron and one proton with no cooling, would give about . Allowing atomic cooling, use a representative ionized temperature for an order-of-magnitude escape estimate. Even this is much greater than the initial , so the pressure support that balanced gravity becomes excessive and an outflow develops. The baryons are photoheated and undergo photoevaporation of a dark-matter minihalo; the shallow halo loses much of its gas and its future star formation is suppressed.
For the size estimate assume mean collapsed density times the mean matter density at collapse. Its virial radius of a dark-matter halo isThis is an order-of-magnitude virial convention, not an exact conversion of the approximate quoted temperature: different factors in the virial temperature definition give comparable radii near . Keep the radius of the bound halo fixed after its stated collapse, rather than rescaling it with the later cosmic mean density. Fully ionized pure hydrogen has mean molecular weight . With monatomic , its adiabatic sound speed isThis exceeds the virial escape-speed scale . A sound-crossing outflow estimate givesmeasured after the ionization front arrives. Using an isothermal sound speed, a different virial factor or a hotter post-front gas changes this by factors of order unity. It is not a second hundreds-of-millions-of-years black-hole growth interval.
The crossing-time estimate assumes the relevant gas can be ionized without a long trapped-front delay. A simple photon-supply check is useful: initially retained gas mass is , while at front arrival . A halo intercepts roughly the fraction of that isotropic supply. For around one to two proper megaparsecs, its hydrogen inventory divided by the intercepted photon rate is also of order ; continued exponential brightening shortens the constant-flux estimate. Thus a gas-loss estimate of one to a few is justified in the idealized model. A detailed evaporation time is not uniquely determined without the gas profile, post-ionization temperature and shielding; retained recombinations would further delay a front in dense gas.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 61 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Treat the features in the QSO spectrum as Lyman-alpha absorption and use the cosmological wavelength-redshift relation to convert their spacing into . In the specified flat matter-plus-cosmological-constant model,A local radial interval has comoving length and proper length . Evaluating the mean interval locally at gives the proper absorber separation from a wavelength intervalThe corresponding comoving interval is about . We neglect peculiar-velocity shifts and treat as approximately constant over one mean interval.
The proper number density is . To compute the mean projected area of a randomly oriented thin disc, note that a disc whose normal makes angle to the sightline has projected area . Isotropic normals haveFor independent intersections with fully covering thin discs, the mean free path through randomly oriented disc absorbers is . ThusAll radii here are proper radii at the absorber epoch. The projected-area average is over the underlying orientation distribution; it already accounts for the larger intersection probability of face-on discs.
The cosmic baryon fraction is , so the disc mass is with . Define . Disc gravity depends on its radial mass profile, which has not been specified. Parameterize its edge circular speed by and use for a centrally concentrated disc in a monopole approximation at its outer edge. The angular-momentum condition givesCombining the equations yields the angular-momentum-conserving self-gravitating disc radiusFor the stated choice, and . The factor makes explicit the otherwise undetermined disc-profile dependence; an enclosed-mass formula is not exact for an arbitrary flattened disc.
To determine the halo speed, a virial-density convention is also needed. Choose a spherical overdensity relative to the critical density at :The virial velocity of a spherical-overdensity halo then obeysThe nearly matter-dominated spherical-collapse choice instead gives about . More generally the numerical radius and velocity scale respectively as and . With , the adopted model has and ; these reproduce the edge speed and the specified angular momentum.
The calculation assumes homogeneous, unclustered intersections, one detectable absorption feature per disc crossing, unit neutral-gas covering factor, isotropic orientations, universal halo baryon fraction and conservation of the specified edge specific angular momentum. It assumes the halo is virialized at the absorber epoch and neglects its inner gravity as instructed. The extra profile and overdensity choices are necessary to turn the geometric and angular-momentum constraints into unique numerical halo properties.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 61 3 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Integrate galactic stellar mass, rather than galaxy count, against the galaxy stellar mass function. With , the comoving cosmic stellar mass density, evaluated by the stellar mass density from a square-root exponential cutoff, isPut , so and . The integral is , givingThe supplied present mean matter density and imply . ThereforeThis is about of today's critical density, or of today's mean matter density, expressed per present comoving volume. The proper stellar density at is ; if comparing that proper density directly with today's critical density its ratio is . It must not be confused with the usual comoving-density comparison. The low-mass number integral diverges if extrapolated to zero mass, but the mass integral converges; real populations require a low-mass cutoff.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 iii Paper 310 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use units , and write for the Hubble parameter, with dots denoting cosmic time. Differentiating the Friedmann equation givesOn an interval where , use the Hubble parameter identity and the Friedmann acceleration equation to findSubstitution cancels the curvature term and gives the continuity equationThe 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 giveswhere the present scale factor is normalized to . Thus the component density laws areThe 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 yieldsConsequently the fractional-density evolution, rather than just the component-density evolution, isIn 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.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2017 iii Paper 310 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
Use units and cosmic time . Define the Hubble parameter , the equation-of-state parameter , and the cosmological density parameterHere is the critical density. The definition requires ; assume positive energy density and an expanding branch so that is a valid time coordinate. The Friedmann equation gives . The Friedmann acceleration equation and Hubble parameter identity giveDifferentiating the Friedmann equation and combining with this identity yields the cosmological perfect-fluid continuity equation . ConsequentlyThus the cosmological density parameter flow isThis identity allows time-dependent ; constancy is needed only for the simple power-law integration in the next part.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 iii Paper 310 1 b ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-05
Choose a reference epoch with and let . Define the critical density and each cosmological density parameter byFor a closed universe . Take the dark-energy component to be a cosmological constant, as indicated by its label. The constant-equation-of-state density scaling givesSubstitution into the Friedmann equation givesAt the reference epoch, . The Friedmann acceleration equation isStrings have and make no direct acceleration contribution, although they affect the Friedmann constraint. The normalized density parameters are undefined at a static epoch, where ; the static solution must therefore be described directly with dimensional densities.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2018 ii Paper 1 9B Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
Let , where a prime denotes differentiation with respect to conformal time . Multiplying the Friedmann equation by givesThe critical density is the value obtained when , so
Since , the pressure-free Raychaudhuri equation givesorDifferentiating and substituting this equation yields
For an expanding universe . The Einstein-de Sitter universe is an unstable constant solution: curves starting with decrease towards , while curves starting with rise away from and diverge as the closed model reaches maximum expansion. This is the Flatness problem.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 iii Paper 310 2 d Solution 2026-09-28
Write the neutrino degeneracy parameter as . Requiring one degenerate species not to exceed today's critical density givesUsing ,Several equally degenerate species would strengthen the bound by the fourth root of their number.
Virial velocity of a spherical-overdensity halo Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-07
For halo mean density times the critical density at its epoch, the circular virial velocity obeys . Thus . Specifying whether overdensity is relative to mean matter or critical density is necessary for numerical inference.
