SPA6311 Physical Cosmology, Spring 2016

Exercise sheet 8 Dr. K. Malik

These questions are designed to help you understand the material covered in the lectures.
Exercise sheets will typically be made available online some time on Wednesday. Please
hand the solutions in by the following Thursday, 1600. Put your full name and student
number on the top of your solutions.

1. Briefly describe the problems of the Hot Big Bang model, and explain how inflation
can solve them (name at least two problems). [30 pts.]

2. The evolution equation for the density contrast δ is given by

ȧ c2
δ̈ + 2 δ̇ − s2 ∇2 δ − 4πGρ̄δ = 0 ,
a a
where c2s is the adiabatic sound speed and ρ̄ the energy density in the background.
a) In Fourier space we can replace Laplacians by ∇2 → −k 2 , where k is the co-
moving wave number. Hence, read off the Jeans wave number from the evolution
equation above, and give the physical Jeans length, λJ .

b) In the case of a flat universe dominated by matter, solve the evolution equation
for the density contrast in the large scale limit, that is for k → 0. Write down the
time evolution of the growing and the decaying modes. [50 pts.]

3. Sketch the matter power spectrum, that is the distribution of fluctuations in the
density contrast, today.
[20 pts.]