Mészáros effect

The Mészáros effect is the suppression of subhorizon cold-dark-matter growth during radiation domination. The growing solution is only logarithmic until matter-radiation equality.

In a radiation-dominated background with comoving cold dark matter, neglect its contribution to gravity but retain the radiation perturbation. The regular adiabatic initial conditions select $F(x)={\int }_0^x(1-\cos t)dt/t+\sin x/x-(1-\cos x)/x^2-1/2$. It obeys $x^2{F}^{(4)}+5x{F}^{(3)}+x^2{F}^{\prime \prime }+x{F}^{\prime }=0$, with $F\sim x^2/8$ at zero and $F\sim \ln x+\gamma -1/2$ at infinity. The accompanying radiation contrast is $K[-2\cos x+4\sin x/x-4(1-\cos x)/x^2]/3$. This exact leading-radiation solution explains the transition from common superhorizon growth to acoustic radiation oscillations and logarithmic matter growth.

After cosmological horizon entry during radiation domination, neglect averaged radiation forcing and the small matter self-gravity term. The CDM density equation in a matter-radiation universe becomes $(\tau {\delta }_C^{\prime }{)}^{\prime }=0$, giving the displayed logarithmic solution. Entry at ${\tau }_h\sim k^{-1}$ matches a superhorizon amplitude of order $A_R/k^2$, fixing the coefficient scale. Detailed radiation forcing near entry determines its order-one numerical factor. This is the Mészáros effect for the initially adiabatic mode.

In an instantaneous-transition approximation, match the superhorizon adiabatic CDM mode in radiation domination and its first derivative to the radiation-era logarithmic solution at ${\tau }_h=1/k$. Its value is $A_R/k^2$ and its derivative is $2A_R/k$. The two matching equations give the displayed expression. Its coefficient two belongs to this approximation; a smooth radiation forcing through entry changes the constants while preserving the logarithmic CDM growth after radiation-era horizon entry scaling.

In a flat universe containing pressureless matter and smooth radiation in cosmology, put $y=a/a_{\mathrm{eq}}$ and $C=H_0^2{\Omega }_{m,0}^2/{\Omega }_{r,0}$. The Friedmann equation gives ${\mathcal{H}}^2=C(1+y)/y^2$, so $y^{\prime 2}=C(1+y)$ and $y^{\prime \prime }=C/2$. The subhorizon cosmological Poisson equation gives ${\delta }^{\prime \prime }+\mathcal{H}{\delta }^{\prime }=3C\delta /(2y)$. The chain rule produces the displayed equation. Smoothing radiation neglects its rapid acoustic forcing after horizon entry; it is not an exact treatment of all radiation perturbations.

A basis of the solution space of a homogeneous linear differential equation for the Mészáros equation on $y>0$ isSubstitution verifies both solutions; their Wronskian is $-1/[y\sqrt{1+y}]$, so they are independent. At small $y$, $D_{+}=1+O(y)$ and $D_{-}=\log (4/y)-3+O(y\log y)$. At large $y$, $D_{+}\sim 3y/2$ and $D_{-}\sim 4/(15y^{3/2})$. Matching the actual early-time radiation forcing determines which constant and logarithmic combination is excited.