Photon Boltzmann hierarchy (${\Theta }_{\ell }$ hierarchy)

Expanding the direction-dependent photon temperature in Legendre polynomials turns its transport equation into an infinite hierarchy. Free streaming couples each multipole ${\Theta }_{\ell }$ only to its neighbours ${\Theta }_{\ell -1}$ and ${\Theta }_{\ell +1}$.

With $B_i^{(\pm )}=i{B}^{(\pm )}{m}_i^{(\pm )}/\sqrt{2}$ and the same convention for baryon velocity, choose ${\Theta }^{(\pm )}={\sum }_{\ell \ge 1}(-i{)}^{\ell }\sqrt{2\pi /(2\ell +1)}{\Theta }_{\ell }^{(\pm )}{Y}_{\ell ,\pm 1}$. The spherical-harmonic streaming recurrence givesThis is the temperature-only Thomson scattering hierarchy without polarization feedback, with optical depth to the observer satisfying $\dot{\tau }<0$. A photon multipole normalization change changes the denominators and the dipole-source prefactor. The lower coupling vanishes at $\ell =1$, so no vector monopole occurs.

In Newtonian gauge in cosmology, the Free-streaming photon Boltzmann equation is $\dot{\Theta }+\mathbf{e}\cdot \nabla \Theta =\dot{\varphi }-\mathbf{e}\cdot \nabla \psi$. Angular averaging and the photon angular temperature moments give the displayed continuity equation. Its dipole yields the photon Euler equation, with the sign of the anisotropic stress term determined by the stress convention.

The dipole member of the photon Boltzmann hierarchy is the photon Euler equation. In Newtonian gauge and without collisions,