In the formal static-background limit, and is constant. The gravity-dominated linear cosmological density perturbation equation reduces toThe Static-universe Jeans modes areThe unstable perturbation grows exponentially rather than as . In the expanding case, the term resists peculiar motion and the falling background density also lengthens the gravitational growth timescale. A globally homogeneous static self-gravitating fluid is not obtained merely by turning off expansion; this calculation is the conventional local Jeans-background idealization, with the uniform background force removed or otherwise supported.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 41 2 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For constant and constant , Hubble friction vanishes. Put . The constant-coefficient ordinary differential equation is , so its characteristic polynomial has the real roots of a polynomial :These are the pressureless special case of the Static-universe Jeans modes. A positive growing-mode coefficient gives exponential gravitational instability, with time scale . For initial data and , the equivalent answer is . This solves the stated perturbation model; a globally static dust-only FRW metric would require additional background support.