The cosmic Doppler instability

Abstract

The equations governing the behavior of perturbations of a mixture of nearly homogeneous and isotropic matter and radiation are derived, using a diffusion approximation where spatial perturbations in the radiation spectrum are allowed to vary with frequency. A simple model of line opacity leads to dispersion relations which display a new bulk instability. The model is used to derive an approximate dispersion relation for radiation interacting via resonance scattering opacity in atomic hydrogen at low density and low temperature. Possible applications to cosmology are briefly discussed.