Post date: Feb 17, 2014 1:42:29 PM
Title: "Some interesting topics from: The large-scale structure of the universe: Turbulence, intermittency, structures in a self-gravitating medium"
Abstract: I will walk us through some of the results in this rich paper that explored the links between structure formation and other areas of physics at the end of the 80's and is a very noteworthy contribution to the field:
The density distribution arising at the nonlinear stage of gravitational instability is similar to intermittency phenomena in acoustic turbulence. Initially small-amplitude density fluctuations of Gaussian type transform into thin dense pancakes, filaments, and compact clumps of matter. It is perhaps surprising that the motion of self-gravitating matter in the expanding universe is like that of noninteracting matter moving by inertia. A similar process is the distribution of light reflected or refracted from rippled water. The similarity of gravitational instability to acoustic turbulence is highlighted by the fact that late non-linear stages of density perturbation growth can be described by the Burgers equation, which is well known in the theory of turbulence. The phenomena discussed in this article are closely related to the problem of the formation of large-scale structure of the universe, which is also discussed.
Discussion Leader: Morgan Le Delliou