Cosmology Fall 2022

Homework 4
Due: Wednesday October 26th 2020, at class time. Justify your answers and show your work.

1. In this exercise we will be figuring out the sound horizon at the last scattering surface for
three different models, and comparing it to the peak of the CMB power spectrum. We will
be using the CMB temperature at present, T0 = 2.725 K, and a present Hubble constant
of H0 = 70 km s−1 Mpc−1 . This implies a value of the cosmological density of primordial
radiation at the present time Ωr0 , that you should compute taking into account that
neutrinos (assumed massless for this exercise) have a density equal to 3.046·(7/8)·(4/11)4/3
times the density of photons. The three models we will use are:
• Flat: Ωm0 = 1 − Ωr0 .
√
• Open: Ωm0 = 0.3, with space curvature radius R0 = cH0−1 / 1 − Ωm0 − Ωr0 .
• Lambda: flat with Ωm0 = 0.3, ΩΛ0 = 1 − Ωm0 − Ωr0 .
In all three models, the part of matter that is baryonic has Ωb0 = 0.045, and the rest,
Ωd0 = Ωm0 − Ωb0 , is dark matter.
In general in this problem, you should expect to have to compute integrals numerically
(rather than in terms of elementary functions) to obtain your results.

(a) Compute Ωr0 , and compute the values of Ωm , Ωr and ΩΛ in the three models at the
last scattering surface, assumed to be at zd = 1089 for all three models.
(b) Compute the angular diameter distance to z = 1 and to z = 1089 for all three
models. In which of the three models will a supernova of fixed luminosity be seen to
be brightest and faintest at z = 1? In which of the three models will a ruler of fixed
physical size be seen to have the smallest and the largest angular size at zd = 1089?
(c) For all three models, compute the sound speed of the baryon-photon fluid at zd =
1089.
(d) The physical sound horizon is defined as
1 Z ∞ cs (z) dz
rs (zd ) = , (1)
1 + zd zd H(z)
where cs (z) is the sound speed at every redshift, from zd to the Big Bang. Compute
the sound horizon, and its angular size on the sky θs = rs (zd )/DA (zd ), in all three
models. Which model has the largest and the smallest angular size of the sound
horizon?
(e) Use the provided table of the coefficients alm of Cosmic Background Radiation in-
tensity fluctuations that were observed by the Planck mission, expressed as spherical
harmonics, to compute the coefficients C` for all ` < 300:
+`
1
|a`m |2 .
X
C` = (2)
2` + 1 m=−`

1
 Note that a`,−m = a∗`,m . Write your own code to do this computation.
What is the value of ` for which the rms temperature fluctuation,
" #1/2
`(` + 1)
(∆T )` = C` , (3)
2π

is maximum (first CBR power spectrum peak) ?

(f) The maximum of the CMB power spectrum is expected to occur at `max ' π/θs ; a
detailed calculation shows the maximum is expected at `max = 0.75π/θs . Which of
the three models agrees best with the measurements, and which disagrees most?