On the spherical collapse model in dark energy cosmologies

Astrophysics, University of Oxford, Keble Road, OX1 3RH, UK e-mail: mota@astro.ox.ac.uk; cvdb@astro.ox.ac.uk

Corresponding author: C. van de Bruck, cvdb@astro.ox.ac.uk

Received: 23 January 2004
Accepted: 30 March 2004

Abstract

We study the spherical collapse model in dark energy cosmologies, in which dark energy is modelled as a minimally coupled scalar field. We first follow the standard assumption that dark energy does not cluster on the scales of interest. Investigating four different popular potentials in detail, we show that the predictions of the spherical collapse model depend on the potential used. We also investigate the dependence on the initial conditions. Secondly, we investigate in how far perturbations in the quintessence field affect the predictions of the spherical collapse model. In doing so, we assume that the field collapses along with the dark matter. Although the field is still subdominant at the time of virialisation, the predictions are different from the case of a homogeneous dark energy component. This will in particular be true if the field is non-minimally coupled. We conclude that a better understanding of the evolution of dark energy in the highly non-linear regime is needed in order to make predictions using the spherical collapse model in models with dark energy.