The onset of nonlinearity in cosmological structure.
We discuss the progression of growth of cosmological structure, from the quasilinear evolution of nearly Gaussian fluctuations on large scales into highly non-Gaussian, strongly nonlinear structure on small scales. A systematic development in perturbation theory describes the first departures from homogeneity but fails to reproduce the fully nonlinear results. Physical insight, conceptual models, and symmetries are useful in the strong clustering regime. A phenomenological model with input information from the quasilinear regime provides enticing results for the strongly nonlinear regime.
Fry
J N
JN
Department of Physics, New Physics Bldg., University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-8440, USA. fry@phys.ufl.edu
Ma
C P
CP