The Friedmann and Raychaudhuri equations are respectively

$$\left(\frac{\dot{a}}{a}\right)^{2}=\frac{8 \pi G}{3} \rho-\frac{k c^{2}}{a^{2}} \quad \text { and } \quad \frac{\ddot{a}}{a}=-\frac{4 \pi G}{3}\left(\rho+\frac{3 P}{c^{2}}\right) \text {, }$$

where $\rho$ is the mass density, $P$ is the pressure, $k$ is the curvature and $\dot{a} \equiv d a / d t$ with $t$ the cosmic time. Using conformal time $\tau$ (defined by $d \tau=d t / a$ ) and the equation of state $P=w \rho c^{2}$, show that these can be rewritten as

$$\frac{k c^{2}}{\mathcal{H}^{2}}=\Omega-1 \quad \text { and } \quad 2 \frac{d \mathcal{H}}{d \tau}=-(3 w+1)\left(\mathcal{H}^{2}+k c^{2}\right)$$

where $\mathcal{H}=a^{-1} d a / d \tau$ and the relative density is $\Omega \equiv \rho / \rho_{\text {crit }}=8 \pi G \rho a^{2} /\left(3 \mathcal{H}^{2}\right)$.

Use these relations to derive the following evolution equation for $\Omega$

$$\frac{d \Omega}{d \tau}=(3 w+1) \mathcal{H} \Omega(\Omega-1)$$

For both $w=0$ and $w=-1$, plot the qualitative evolution of $\Omega$ as a function of $\tau$ in an expanding universe $\mathcal{H}>0$ (i.e. include curves initially with $\Omega>1$ and $\Omega<1$ ).

Hence, or otherwise, briefly describe the flatness problem of the standard cosmology and how it can be solved by inflation.