Accelerating cosmological expansion from shear and bulk viscosity

The dissipation of energy from local velocity perturbations in the cosmological fluid affects the time evolution of spatially averaged fluid dynamic fields and the cosmological solution of Einstein's field equations. We show how this backreaction effect depends on shear and bulk viscosity and o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 114; no. 9; p. 091301
Main Authors Floerchinger, Stefan, Tetradis, Nikolaos, Wiedemann, Urs Achim
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 06.03.2015
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Summary:The dissipation of energy from local velocity perturbations in the cosmological fluid affects the time evolution of spatially averaged fluid dynamic fields and the cosmological solution of Einstein's field equations. We show how this backreaction effect depends on shear and bulk viscosity and other material properties of the dark sector, as well as the spectrum of perturbations. If sufficiently large, this effect could account for the acceleration of the cosmological expansion.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.114.091301