A new angle on gravitational clustering

Román Scoccimarro

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    A new approach to gravitational instability in large-scale structure is described, where the equations of motion are written and solved as in field theory in terms of Feynman diagrams. The basic objects of interest are the propagator (which propagates solutions forward in time), the vertex (which describes nonlinear interactions between waves) and a source with prescribed statistics which describes the effect of initial conditions. We show that loop corrections renormalize these quantities, and discuss applications of this formalism to a better understanding of gravitational instability and to improving nonlinear perturbation theory in the transition to the nonlinear regime. We also consider the role of vorticity creation due to shell-crossing and show using N-body simulations for which at small (virialized) scales the velocity field reaches equipartition, that is, the vorticity power spectrum is about twice the divergence power spectrum.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)13-23
    Number of pages11
    JournalAnnals of the New York Academy of Sciences
    Volume927
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 2001

    Keywords

    • Gravitational instability
    • Large-scale structure of the Universe

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Neuroscience
    • General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
    • History and Philosophy of Science

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