Past exam of the general relativity and cosmology course of the University of Oxford / 2013 / 3 / a / Solution

Use mass density units for the $\rho$ appearing in the Friedmann equation; an actual energy density is $\rho c^2$. Conservation, $\dot{\rho }+3H(\rho +P/c^2)=0$, gives $\boxed{{\rho }_M={\rho }_{M,0}{a}^{-3},{\rho }_R={\rho }_{R,0}{a}^{-4}}$ for pressureless matter and radiation in cosmology, respectively, with $a_0=1$. The first scaling counts dilution of particle number, while the second includes the cosmological redshift of each photon's energy.

Define the present cosmological density parameters by ${\Omega }_{X,0}=8\pi G{\rho }_{X,0}/(3H_0^2)$. ThenFor $k=0$, conformal time gives $da/d\eta =a^{2}H$, so the expanding branch obeys $(da/d\eta {)}^2=H_0^2({\Omega }_{M,0}a+{\Omega }_{R,0})$. Set $\eta =0$ at the Big Bang. Integrating givesand hence the flat matter-radiation conformal solutionThe limiting pure-radiation and pure-matter cases follow continuously.