OPTION D - ASTROPHYSICS

D5 Further Cosmology (AHL)

The cosmological principle

The cosmological principle is a set of conditions for the

universe:
• The universe is homogeneous: that it is the same in every
place, so the Earth is not a special place but just the same
as anywhere else
• The universe is isotropic, that is, it looks the same in every
direction. We can see that this isn’t true on a small scale
since the sky doesn’t look the same in all directions but on
a big scale the Universe is uniform.
• The laws of physics that apply on the Earth must apply
everywhere else.
Curvature of the universe
• According to Newton’s universal law of gravity all particles
with mass attract all others.
• Newton also developed laws of motion which stated that if
the same force was applied to different bodies the
acceleration produced would be inversely proportional to
the mass of the body.
• So mass is responsible for two effects, the size of the
gravitational force and the magnitude of acceleration.
Curvature of the universe
• Einstein took things further by suggesting that these effects
were equivalent.
• If this is the case then light should follow a curved path in a
gravitational field.
• This cannot be explained using Newton’s Universal law since
light, having no mass, is not affected by gravity.
• To overcome this problem, Einstein developed the general
theory of relativity which explains the acceleration of
objects in gravitational fields by considering space and time
to be curved by mass.
Curvature of the universe
• If mass curves space–time then the mass of the Universe
must curve the space of the Universe.
• This curvature can take three forms: flat, negative, or
positive.
Curvature of the universe
• A positive curvature implies a closed Universe. This also
implies that the Universe will not have an infinite lifetime:
after expanding for some time it will start to contract.
• A negative curvature implies that the expansion will
continue for ever; we call this an open Universe.
• Flat curvature also implies
continual expansion but the
expansion is continually slowing
down, approaching a finite size at
infinite time.
• These different situations are
called Friedmann Universes and
can be represented by the three
lines on the graph below.
Critical density (ρC)
Critical density () is the density of the Universe that separates a
universe that will expand forever (open universe) and one that
will re-collapse (closed universe).
A universe with a density equal to the critical density is called
flat and it will expand forever at a slowing rate.
The critical density isgiven by the formula below (Data Booklet)

Now the Hubble constant, H0 = v/d which is the same as v/R so

substituting gives:
Deriving critical density (ρC)
• The density required to create a flat Universe is called the
critical density and can be calculated by applying Newton’s law
to an expanding spherical cloud of matter with mass M.
• If at some time it has size R then the total energy of the cloud
will equal PE + KE:

• As the cloud expands the PE will increase and the KE will

decrease until, when the cloud reaches infinite size, both PE
and KE will be zero.
• Applying the law of conservation of energy we know that the
loss of KE must equal the gain in PE so:
Deriving critical density (ρC)
• This can be rewritten in terms of the cloud density, which since
the cloud is spherical is given by:

𝒗 𝒗
𝑯 𝟎= =
𝒅 𝑹

𝟐
𝟑 𝑯𝟎
𝝆 𝒄=
𝟖𝝅𝑮
Critical density

Universe

Closed Open Flat

More than enough matter : Not enough matter: Critical density

density is too big to  density is such  Universe will

allow an infinite expansion that gravity is too only start to
 gravity will stop the weak to stop the contract after an
Universe expansion and Universe expanding infinite amount of
cause it to contract (Big forever time
Crunch)
Expanding Universe - Cosmological redshift
• Hubble and Slipher discovered that all galaxies were moving
away from the Earth and presented a red shift.
• However, there was a problem with the Doppler
explanation.
• At very large distances, the recessional velocity will be faster
than the speed of light.
• But according to Einstein’s general relativity an expanding
Universe will have expanding space, so the galaxies aren’t
moving apart through space; it is the space they are in that
is expanding.
• This also explains why the further galaxies recede faster.
Cosmological redshift
Cosmological redshift
• In the universe it is only the space between galaxies that
gets bigger, not the galaxies themselves. This is because the
mass in galaxies and their relatively compact nature
(compared to cosmological distances) keeps them
gravitationally bound.
• All galaxies move away from each other, which is in
accordance with the cosmological principle. So galaxies
don’t fly apart, it is the space between them that increases.
• The reason why the wavelength of light from distant galaxies
is increased is because during the time taken for the light to
travel from the galaxy to the Earth the space has expanded,
so stretching the wavelength.
• This is called cosmological redshift.
CMB and the temperature of the Universe
• The CMB radiation had some interesting features:
• It was the same in every direction. If the source was in
our galaxy it would be stronger when the antenna
pointed towards the centre. The homogeneous, isotropic
nature of the radiation makes it look like something
much bigger.
• By measuring the intensity of the radiation at different
wavelengths it was found to follow the black-body
spectrum almost perfectly as shown by the graph in the
photograph.
• Using Wien’s law, we can calculate the temperature of
the black-body radiation to be 2.73 K.
CMB and the temperature of the Universe
• From Wien’s equation we can see that T 1/ but as the
Universe expands the wavelength will be proportional to the
scale factor R so:
𝟏
𝑻∝
𝑹
• There seems to be a lot of evidence to suggest that the CMB
is the leftover black-body radiation that filled the Universe
just before it became transparent.
• This is very strong supporting evidence for the Big Bang
model of the Universe.
Rotation curves and the mass of galaxies

• A big spiral galaxy such as the NGC

6744 rotates.
• It is not possible to see this rotation
but if viewed edge on, one side of the
galaxy will be coming towards the
Earth, and the other moving away.
• This causes a different Doppler shift in spectral lines from
light coming from the two sides enabling astronomers to
calculate the speed of rotation and from the speed it is
possible to calculate the mass.
Measuring density

• To find out how the Universe will evolve we need to know

the Hubble constant and the density of the Universe.
• To make the numbers more manageable, scientists refer to
the density parameter  rather than the density. This is the
ratio of the density to the critical density:
𝝆
𝜴=
𝝆𝒄
• If the density equals the critical density and the Universe is
at  = 1.
• If the Universe is open  < 1 and the Universe is closed if 
> 1.
Measuring density
• To measure the density of the Universe we need to measure
the mass in a given volume.
• We would need to take a big volume so it would represent the
homogeneous nature of the Universe.
• This volume would contain many galaxies so we need to know
the mass of a galaxy.
• This could be done by estimating the number of stars that a
galaxy such as the Milky Way contains then multiplying by the
mass of an average-sized star like the Sun.
• Calculations like this give a value of  much less than 1,
implying an open Universe.
• However, if we look more closely at the galaxies we find
something is wrong.
Rotation curves and the mass of galaxies

• Choosing stars at different distances from the centre of the

galaxy, we expect that once we get beyond the central part
of the galaxy the speed of the stars should get less as
distance increases.
• We can show why this is using Newton’s law of gravitation.
Consider the star orbiting the massive centre of a galaxy as
shown.
Rotation curves and the mass of galaxies
Deriving rotational velocity from Newtonian gravitation
• The star is moving with circular motion where the centripetal
force is provided by the gravitational attraction of the part of
the galaxy inside the orbit (the effect of the outside part will
cancel out).
• Applying Newton’s law gives:

But assuming the density of the galaxy is constant, the mass of

the inside part will be
Rotation curves and the mass of galaxies
Deriving rotational velocity from Newtonian gravitation
This gives:

So within the galaxy the stars will move faster as you increase
the distance from the centre:

If we go towards the edge of the galaxy and beyond, any orbiting

stars will simply be attracted to the central mass which will not
change as the orbit radius is increased:


Rotation curves and the mass of galaxies

This can be represented by

drawing a graph of the velocity
against distance from the centre.
This is called a rotation curve and
is shown by the blue line.
By measuring the Doppler shift for
stars that are in the main part of
the galaxy and beyond it is found
that the velocities do not match
this prediction.

The velocity of stars on the outside are far too big suggesting
that there is a lot more mass there than we can see.
Rotation curves and dark matter

• One explanation for the rotation curves of galaxies is that

there is a lot more mass in and around the galaxy than can
be seen.
• This is called dark matter since, unlike stars, it doesn’t emit
light (we can’t see it).
• We can, however, see its effects on the stars and gas.
• Measurements show that there must be about five times
more dark matter than the matter we can see.
• The problem is that, because we can’t see it, it is difficult to
say what it is.
Rotation curves and dark matter

• Two interestingly named possibilities are WIMPs and

MACHOs.
• WIMPs are weakly interacting massive particles.
• These, rather like neutrinos, are particles that hardly interact
at all with the regular particles of matter, baryons.
• On the other end of the size scale, MACHOs are massive
compact halo objects such as black holes and brown dwarfs
that could be present around the outside of a galaxy in the
form of a halo.
• What is Dark Matter? A Mystery of the Universe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCwWxrx1SIU
Dark energy – accelerating expansion

• The effect of gravity should be slowing down the expansion

of the universe.
• However, we actually find the opposite. The rate of
expansion is increasing.
• It is the increase of potential energy that reduces the kinetic
energy of parts of the Universe, causing the expansion to
slow down, so if there was some sort of negative energy
then it would have the opposite effect.
• This is called dark energy.
Fluctuations in the CMB
Describing and interpreting the observed anisotropies
• In 2001 the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was
launched to make accurate measurements of the cosmic
microwave radiation.
• At first sight the radiation appeared to be uniform in every
direction but when analysed more closely it was found that there
are very small variations of less than 10−4 K.
• Variations in temperature represent original variations in the
density of the expanding Universe just before it became
transparent.
Fluctuations in the CMB
Describing and interpreting the observed anisotropies
• This can be explained if we go back to an earlier time when the
Universe was a lot smaller.
• Small-scale phenomena such as atoms and nuclei are governed
by quantum mechanics so the position of a particle is given by a
probability distribution rather than a definite point.
• This makes it difficult to have a perfectly uniform gas of particles
so at this very small scale there would have been quantum
mechanical fluctuations resulting in variations in density.
• If this stage was followed by a rapid inflation these small-scale
fluctuations would be expanded into large-scale variations in
density that would form the centres for large-scale structures
containing clusters of galaxies.
• Why is the universe flat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTUsOWtxKKA
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D – mark scheme
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D – mark scheme
Specimen Paper 3 – Option D – mark scheme
• Dark Matter And Dark Energy In The Universe (#Mind
Blowing Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwHH2mymUdI