On the tail problem in cosmology

The tail problem for the propagation of a scalar field is considered in a cosmological background, taking a Robertson-Walker spacetime as a specific example. The explicit radial dependence of the general solution of the Klein-Gordon equation with non-minimal coupling is derived, and the inapplicability of the standard calculation of the reflection and transmission coefficients to the study of scattering of waves by the cosmological curvature is discussed.