Consistent perturbations in an imperfect fluid

We present a new prescription for analysing cosmological perturbations in a more-general class of scalar-field dark-energy models where the energy-momentum tensor has an imperfect-fluid form. This class includes Brans-Dicke models, f ( R ) gravity, theories with kinetic gravity braiding and generali...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sawicki, Ignacy (Author) , Amendola, Luca (Author)
Format: Article (Journal)
Language:English
Published: 2 January 2013
In: Journal of cosmology and astroparticle physics
Year: 2013, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-55
ISSN:1475-7516
DOI:10.1088/1475-7516/2013/01/004
Online Access:Verlag, Volltext: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2013/01/004
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Author Notes:Ignacy Sawicki, Ippocratis D. Saltas, Luca Amendola and Martin Kunz
Description
Summary:We present a new prescription for analysing cosmological perturbations in a more-general class of scalar-field dark-energy models where the energy-momentum tensor has an imperfect-fluid form. This class includes Brans-Dicke models, f ( R ) gravity, theories with kinetic gravity braiding and generalised galileons. We employ the intuitive language of fluids, allowing us to explicitly maintain a dependence on physical and potentially measurable properties. We demonstrate that hydrodynamics is not always a valid description for describing cosmological perturbations in general scalar-field theories and present a consistent alternative that nonetheless utilises the fluid language. We apply this approach explicitly to a worked example: k- essence non-minimally coupled to gravity. This is the simplest case which captures the essential new features of these imperfect-fluid models. We demonstrate the generic existence of a new scale separating regimes where the fluid is perfect and imperfect. We obtain the equations for the evolution of dark-energy density perturbations in both these regimes. The model also features two other known scales: the Compton scale related to the breaking of shift symmetry and the Jeans scale which we show is determined by the speed of propagation of small scalar-field perturbations, i.e. causality, as opposed to the frequently used definition of the ratio of the pressure and energy-density perturbations.
Item Description:Gesehen am 13.11.2017
Physical Description:Online Resource
ISSN:1475-7516
DOI:10.1088/1475-7516/2013/01/004