English

A covariant approach to parameterised cosmological perturbations

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2017-09-13 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

We present a covariant formulation for constructing general quadratic actions for cosmological perturbations, invariant under a given set of gauge symmetries for a given field content. This approach allows us to analyse scalar, vector and tensor perturbations at the same time in a straightforward manner. We apply the procedure to diffeomorphism invariant single-tensor, scalar-tensor and vector-tensor theories and show explicitly the full covariant form of the quadratic actions in such cases, in addition to the actions determining the evolution of vector and tensor perturbations. We also discuss the role of the symmetry of the background in identifying the set of cosmologically relevant free parameters describing these classes of theories, including calculating the relevant free parameters for an axisymmetric Bianchi-I vacuum universe.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1706.10091,
  title  = {A covariant approach to parameterised cosmological perturbations},
  author = {Oliver J. Tattersall and Macarena Lagos and Pedro G. Ferreira},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.10091},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

Updated to match published version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T20:34:18.228Z