Astrophysics

Lecture notes
Ian Galbraith

Department of Physics,
Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh.

Room 2.07, Tel. 0131-451-3066,

Email I.Galbraith@hw.ac.uk

November 5, 2002
 Texts
An Introduction to Modern Cosmology - A. Liddle, (Wiley, 1998)

The First Three Minutes - S. Weinberg (Flamingo, 1998)

The Big Bang - J. Silk (Freeman, 1989)

Plus a lot of books in the library and the Internet.

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 Introduction

• Cosmology is the study of the Universe on a very large and long scale.

• The Big Bang is the theory of what happened just after time started. It is
based on finding a consistent explanation for a large number of observed
facts.

2
 Observations 1
Using visible light we can see:

Stars Like our Sun which is a typical star, It;s nearest neighbour is ≈ 3
light years away. These are grouped together in ...

Galaxies with ≈ 1011 stars. Galaxies rotate in around 200 million years. on
a larger scale we have the ...

Local Group and large scale clusters. But on a larger scale we have

Smoothness On the largest scale the Universe is isotropic, i.e. it looks the
same in every direction.

This is best quantified by the Cosmic Background Radiation which is an

almost perfect blackbody spectrum at 2.78K. It is uniform to one part in
100000 in all directions. This uniformity indicates that all regions of the
Universe were intimately connected at some time in the past.

3
 Observations 2
From spectral observations of starlight and independent measurements of
the distance to these stars Erwin Hubble found that the Doppler shift was
proportional to the distance. This implies that the further away stars are
the faster they are moving.
~v = H~r
where H is Hubble’s Constant This was also found to be isotropic.

A simple conclusion of this is that we must be in the centre of the Universe

but it isn’t necessarily so.

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 Friedmann Equation
The Friedmann Equation can be derived using ideas from classical gravitation
theory.

The force experience by one small region of the Universe of mass m due to
attraction by the rest of the matter is given by

GM m
F =
r2

where M is the mass at smaller radii than r. This is a consequence of Gauss’

Theorem just as in electrostatics. so

Gm 4πρr3
F =
r2 3
4πGmρr
=
3
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and the mass has the potential Energy

GM m
V = −
r
4πGmρr2
= −
3
and the total energy is thus

1 2 4πGmρr2
U = mṙ −
2 3
This equation gives the separation r of two particles.
We make a variable change to so-called co-moving coordinates.

~r = a(t)~x

In this equation the real distance ~r is the product of a(t) and a time
independent coordinate ~x. The a(t) is known as the scale factor of the
Universe and describes the evolution of the whole Universe in time.

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This equation can be rearranged as
µ ¶2
ȧ 8πG kc2
= ρ− 2
a 3 a

where
2 −2U
kc =
mx2
This is the Friedmann Equation - and it is true also if general relativity is
taken into account!

The constant k is unchanging in either space or time and as we shall see

determines the ultimate fate of the Universe in this simple model.

The expansion we speak of here does not mean that everything expands
simultaneously. The molecules which make up humans for example are held
together by electrostatic forces and they determine the size of chemical
bonds. Similarly the Earth’s distance from the Sun is fixed by the attraction
to the Sun. The expansion we are considering is where the forces between
objects is mediated by a homogeneous distribution of mass in between them.

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 The Fluid Equation
As can be seen the Friedmann equation depends on the density ρ so we
cannot solve this equation until we can determine the density.

From classical thermodynamics the work done by a reversible change in

volume is

dE = −P dV

where P is the pressure and V the volume.

We can write
4π 3 3 2
2
E = mc = a x ρc
3
So
dE da 4π dρ
= 4πa2x3ρc2 + a3x3 c2
dt dt 3 dt
The change in volume is
dV da
= 4πa2x3
dt dt
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Substituting in and re-arranging gives
µ ¶
ȧ P
ρ̇ + 3 ρ+ 2 =0
a c

So now we have an equation for the density - but all we have done is shifted
the problem to one of defining the pressure P as a function of the density
ρ. Such a relationship is called the equation of state and e.g. for an ideal
gas we have P V = nRT . But the Universe is not an ideal gas so we must
specify it’s nature. We’ll consider two cases in turn:

Dust: What we mean by this is material of essentially zero pressure. This is

a good approximation to the case when the material is cool and seldom
interacts.

Radiation: In this regime the pressure is dominated by radiation pressure

P = ρc2/3. The pressure produced by any highly relativistic particles has
this equation of state.

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 The Dust Universe

We concentrate first on the case with k = 0 and return to it’s meaning later.

µ ¶2
ȧ 8πG
= ρ
a 3

ȧ
ρ̇ + 3 ρ = 0
a
1 d 3
(ρa ) = 0
a3 dt
d
(ρa3) = 0
dt
ρa3 = constant
ρ0
ρ =
a3
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We can now substitute this into the Friedmann equation (with k = 0)

8πG ρ0
ȧ2 =
3 a
µ ¶2
da 8πG
a = ρ0
dt 3
µ ¶ r
√ da 8πG
a = ρ0
dt 3
Z Z r
√ 8πG
a da = ρ0 dt
3
r
2 3/2 8πG
a = ρ0 t
3 3
r
3/2 3 8πG
a = ρ0 t
2 3
9 8πG
a3 = ρ0 t2
4 3
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 a3 = 6πGρ0 t2
a = (6πGρ0)1/3 t2/3

Since a = 1 at the present time, t0, we can rewrite this as

µ ¶2/3
t
a(t) =
t0
ρ0 ρ0t20
ρ(t) = 3
= 2
a t

In this solution the Universe expands forever but the rate of expansion
becomes ever slower. The Universe will never re-collapse. This is one of the
classic cosmological solutions.

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 The Radiation Universe
Radiation does produce a finite pressure, P = ρc2/3, so the fluid equation
is now
ȧ
ρ̇ + 4 ρ = 0
a
Integrating as before we find
ρ0
ρ= 4
a
and hence
µ ¶1/2
t
a(t) =
t0
ρ0t20
ρ(t) =
t2

So the Universe expands more slowly when radiation dominates. So it is not

correct to think of the pressure ”blowing” out the Universe! In both cases
the density drops of quadratically.

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 The mixed Radiation/Dust Universe
If you have a mixture of dust and radiation you have separate fluid equations
for each phase and we still get

ρ0 ρ0
ρdust = 3 ; ρrad = 4
a a

However there is only one Friedmann equation which has

ρ = ρdust + ρrad.

In this case the scale factor, a is much more complex and we specialize in
the case where one component is much bigger than the other. For example
when radiation dominates we have

a(t) ∝ t1/2 ; ρrad ∝ t−2 ; ρdust ∝ t−3/2

Note that the density in the dust falls off more slowly that that in the
radiation. So even though the radiation dominates initially the dust will

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eventually dominate. We can say that the radiation-dominated Universe is
unstable.

In the opposite situation - where dust dominates

a(t) ∝ t2/3 ; ρdust ∝ t−2 ; ρrad ∝ t−8/3

So dust domination is a stable regime becoming increasingly dominant as

time goes on.

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