The non-perturbative regime of cosmic structure formation

Arnold Sommerfeld Center for Theoretical Physics, Ludwig–Maximilians–Universität, Theresienstr. 37, 80333 München, Germany e-mail: buchert@theorie.physik.uni-muenchen.de

Received: 23 January 2006
Accepted: 14 March 2006

Abstract

This paper focusses on the barely understood gap between the weakly nonlinear regime of structure formation and the onset of the virialized regime. While the former is accessed through perturbative calculations and the latter through virialization conditions incorporating dynamical stresses that arise in collisionless self-gravitating systems due to velocity dispersion forces, the addressed regime can only be understood through non-perturbative models. We here present an exact Lagrangian integral that provides a tool to access this regime. We derive a transport equation for the peculiar-gravitational field strength and integrate it along comoving trajectories of fluid elements. The so-obtained integral provides an exact expression that solves the longitudinal gravitational field equation in general. We argue that this integral provides a powerful approximation beyond the Lagrangian perturbative regime, and discuss its relation to known approximations, among them Lagrangian perturbation solutions including the Zel'dovich approximation and approximations for adhesive gravitational clustering, including the adhesion approximation. Furthermore, we propose an iteration scheme for a systematic analytical and numerical construction of trajectory fields. The integral may also be employed to improve inverse reconstruction techniques.