Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 iii Paper 55 3 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-06
For the growing adiabatic mode in an epoch of constant , the superhorizon potential is constant. The Friedmann equation gives , so the given relation impliesThus and . Photon continuity, neglecting its gradient term on superhorizon scales, gives . The radiation-era initial condition fixes . Through the matter-radiation transition it follows that . Since , the matched large-scale emission perturbation isKeeping the radiation value of unchanged across the transition would give the wrong coefficient. This is the Sachs-Wolfe radiation-to-matter matching for the paper's sign convention for comoving curvature perturbation.
Neglect the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, the superhorizon-suppressed Doppler term, observer monopole, and any observer kinematic dipole. Put by statistical homogeneity, and defineThe plane-wave expansion on gives angular multipolesStatistical isotropy and orthonormal spherical harmonics then imply . Radial integration supplies , giving the large-angle angular power spectrumThis assumes adiabatic growing modes, matter domination at emission, negligible anisotropic stress, and wavenumbers that are outside the Hubble radius then. It treats recombination as instantaneous, omits late potential evolution and rescattering, and omits lensing at this linear order. The formal primordial contribution is defined for ; the observed dipole has a large additional kinematic contribution, so the clean large-angle primordial comparison is usually . A scale-invariant spectrum also yields the Sachs-Wolfe plateau for .