2001/11/30 by C. Wetterich · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.67.043513
published as Phys.Rev. D67 (2003) 043513 · new "cosmic virial theorem",new references,LaTex,11 pages
arxiv created 2002/11/28 · openalex publication_date 2003/02/27 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The back reaction of structure formation influences the cosmological evolution equation for the homogenous and isotropic average metric. In a cold dark matter universe this effect leads only to small corrections unless a substantial fraction of matter is located in regions where strong gravitational fields evolve in time. A``cosmic virial theorem'' states that the sum of gravitational and matter pressures vanishes and, therefore relates the average kinetic energy to a suitable average of the Newtonian potential. In the presence of a scalar ``cosmon'' field mediating quintessence, however, cosmology could be modified if local cosmon fluctuations grow large. We speculate that this may trigger the accelerated expansion of the universe after the formation of structure.