Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2024 / iii / Paper 312 / 4 / ii / Solution

The cosmological visibility function is the probability density for last scattering, so the stipulated two instantaneous populations giveSince $g={\partial }_{\eta }{e}^{-\tau }$ and $e^{-\tau }$ vanishes before the first transparent epoch,Its plot is a nondecreasing step function: it jumps from zero to $p$ at recombination and from $p$ to one at ${\eta }_1$. The cosmological optical depth interpretation is that $e^{-\tau (\eta )}$ is the probability that a photon present at time $\eta$ reaches the observer without any later scattering.