A field theory approach to cosmological density perturbations

We discuss the evolution of linear perturbations about a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background metric, using only the local conservation of energy-momentum. We show that on sufficiently large scales the curvature perturbation on spatial hypersurfaces of uniform-density is conserved when the non-adiabatic pressure perturbation is negligible. This is the first time that this result has been demonstrated independently of the gravitational field equations. A physical picture of l...

We show that the field equations for cosmological perturbations in Newtonian gauge always have an adiabatic solution, for which a quantity ${\cal R}$ is non-zero and constant in all eras in the limit of large wavelength, so that it can be used to connect observed cosmological fluctuations in this mode with those at very early times. There is also a second adiabatic mode, for which ${\cal R}$ vanishes for large wavelength, and in general there may be non-adiabatic modes as wel...

We study scalar perturbations to a Robertson-Walker cosmological metric in terms of a pseudo-Newtonian potential, which emerges naturally from the solution of the field equations. This potential is given in terms of a Green function for matter density fluctuations of arbitrary amplitude whose time and spatial dependence are assumed known. The results obtained span both the linearized and Newtonian limits, and do not explicitly depend on any kind of averaging procedure, but ma...

The effective equation of motion is derived for a scalar field interacting with other fields in a Friedman-Robertson-Walker background space-time. The dissipative behavior reflected in this effective evolution equation is studied both in simplified approximations as well as numerically. The relevance of our results to inflation are considered both in terms of the evolution of the inflaton field as well as its fluctuation spectrum. A brief examination also is made of supersymm...

We explore differences between scalar field, and scalar density solutions by using Robertson-Walker (RW) metric, and also a non-relativistic Hamiltonian is derived for a scalar density field in the post-Newtonian approximation. The results are compared with those of scalar field. The expanding universe in RW metric, and post-Newtonian solution of Klein-Gordon equation are separately discussed.

We give a rigorous and mathematically well defined presentation of the Covariant and Gauge Invariant theory of scalar perturbations of a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe for Fourth Order Gravity, where the matter is described by a perfect fluid with a barotropic equation of state. The general perturbations equations are applied to a simple background solution of R^n gravity. We obtain exact solutions of the perturbations equations for scales much bigger than the H...

The covariant gauge invariant perturbation theory of scalar cosmological perturbations is developed for a general Scalar-Tensor Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker cosmology in a vacuum. The perturbation equations are then solved exactly in the long wavelength limit for a specific coupling, potential and background. Differences with the minimally coupled case are briefly discussed.

It is shown that a first-order relativistic perturbation theory for the open, flat or closed Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker universe admits one, and only one, gauge-invariant quantity which describes the perturbation to the energy density and which becomes equal to the usual Newtonian energy density in the non-relativistic limit. The same holds true for the perturbation to the particle number density. These facts exclude all definitions of gauge-invariant quantities used...

We study adiabatic regularization of a coupling massless scalar field in general spatially flat Robertson-Walker (RW) spacetimes. For the conformally-coupling, the 0th-order regularized power spectrum and 0th-order regularized stress tensor are zero, and no trace anomaly exists in general RW spacetimes. This is a new result which extents those found in de Sitter space. For the minimally-coupling, the regularized spectra are also zero in the radiation-dominant stage, the matte...

In earlier work we showed that a frame dependent effective action motivated by the postulates of three-space general coordinate invariance and Weyl scaling invariance exactly mimics a cosmological constant in Robertson-Walker (RW) spacetimes. Here we study the implications of this effective action for small fluctuations around a spatially flat RW background geometry. The equations for the conserving extension of the modified stress-energy tensor can be integrated in closed fo...