Paper 2, Section I, D
Part II, 2013
The linearised equation for the growth of small inhomogeneous density perturbations with comoving wavevector in an isotropic and homogeneous universe is
where is the matter density, is the sound speed, is the pressure, is the expansion scale factor of the unperturbed universe, and overdots denote differentiation with respect to time .
Define the Jeans wavenumber and explain its physical meaning.
Assume the unperturbed Friedmann universe has zero curvature and cosmological constant and it contains only zero-pressure matter, so that . Show that the solution for the growth of density perturbations is given by
Comment briefly on the cosmological significance of this result.