Intro To Cosmology Class Project 1: - Cosmography

Intro to Cosmology
Class Project 1
20 points + 5 extra credit points
Problem 1 Cosmography
The goal of this project is to provide each student with a tool to compute cosmological
distances and times of an object at a given redshift. This tool may become useful to you in
the future if you embark in a field of study which is related to cosmology.
Read the entire problem before working on the first step, to take into account the
requirements of all steps in your code.
The coding is contained in parts D and E. The rest are questions that help you prepare
the coding piece, or interpret results.
3 extra credit points will be given for writing up the project in LATEX. However, you
do not have to type the report, except for the submission of the code.
Consider a universe (not necessarily flat) with the following components:
Matter, with density parameter m

Cosmological constant, with density parameter
Radiation, with density parameter r ,
which is described by the FRW metric:

[ dx2 ]
ds2 = c2 dt2 + a2 (t) + x2
(d 2
+ sin 2
d 2
) .
1 x2
A) Write down the relations between x, a.k.a the transverse comoving distance, and r
our usual (radial) comoving distance, for each of the 3 universe geometries.
1
B) Angular diameter distance DA is defined such that an object of proper length, ,
which is at redshift z and which subtends an angle as observed from Earth, will
satisfy
= DA (z) .
Using the FRW metric, write down 2 expressions for DA , first as a function of x, and
second as a function of z, H0 and all the density parameters listed above.
Make sure to check your answer for DA (z) in your textbooks (or other references)
because the following parts of this project will depend on it.
C) Similar to the above, DL is used to relate an observed flux, F , to an intrinsic luminos-
ity, L of a source at redshift z.
L
F = .
4DL2
(Luminosity is simply the power of the source, in units of energy per time.)
This part guides you through the derivation of the relation between DL and x. How-
ever, you can derive this relation any other way you prefer.
Consider a source emiting N photons, at frequency , per frequency range , per
time t. The specific luminosity is then defined as:
dL N h
L =
d t
Show that if you could capture all the photons coming from this source, you
would measure a specific luminosity at t = t0 of
L
L,0 =
1+z
Show that the total luminosity over the received (and redshifted) frequency range,
0 , is
L
L0 =
(1 + z)2
2
Assume that your telescope has size and area 2 . From the point of view
of the source, only a fraction 2 of the number of emitted photons will head
towards your telescope, where is the angular size of the (future) telescope as
seen from the source.
Find the relation between and . This can simply be obtained by considering
DA , and keeping in mind that we are looking at an object at time t = t0 , i.e. a = 1.
Show that
DL = (1 + z) x.
D) Using your favorite programing/plotting tool, write down a function that returns the
following distance and time measures:
The comoving distance, r(z)

The angular diameter distance, DA (z)
The luminosity distance, DL (z)
The look-back time, tLB (z)
The program must take as input:

The redshift, z
The density parameters m , , and r
The Hubble constant, H0
You can choose whether the program outputs all of these quantities at once, or whether
it outputs only the one selected by the user. The program must be able to output the
result for either a single value z, or for the entire redshift range from 0 to z, in the
form of an array.
You do not have to write your own numerical integration scheme. You can use avail-
able packages to do the integrations in the problem. You have to be very careful about
the accuracy of the integration scheme, as small errors can propagate and increase.
(Feel free to show any work done in this regard.)
Coding your own version of an integration scheme (e.g. Runge-Kutta) is worth 2 extra
credit points.
Please submit the code as part of your project. The code must be clear and nicely
commented, in order to highlight the key steps, and to make its grading possible!
3
E) You can now use your code to plot the following. Consider 4 universes, with the
following parameters (and r = 0):
Universe A: CDM concordance model with (m , ) = (0.3, 0.7).

Universe B: Matter-only open universe with model with (m , ) = (0.3, 0).
Universe C: Einstein-de Sitter (a.k.a critical) universe with (m , ) = (1.0, 0).
Universe D: Matter-only closed universe with model with (m , ) = (1.5, 0).
On 4 dierent plots, plot the 4 quantities r, DA , DL , tLB that you have written your
code to compute. Redshift must run from 0 to 10. Distances and times must be scaled
to the natural scales of the problem. In other words, the y-axes will depend on phys-
ical constants. For each quantity, plot the lines for all 4 universes on the same plot.
F) Give an interpretation of the fact that DA (z) decreases after a certain redshift.
Problem 2 TBD
...

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Intro to Cosmology

20 points + 5 extra credit points

Consider a universe (not necessarily flat) with the following components:

Matter, with density parameter m

which is described by the FRW metric:

The comoving distance, r(z)

The program must take as input:

Universe A: CDM concordance model with (m , ) = (0.3, 0.7).

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