English

Power spectra in the eikonal approximation with adiabatic and non-adiabatic modes

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2013-10-10 v2

Abstract

We use the so-called eikonal approximation, recently introduced in the context of cosmological perturbation theory, to compute power spectra for multi-component fluids. We demonstrate that, at any given order in standard perturbation theory, multipoint power spectra do not depend on the large-scale adiabatic modes. Moreover, we employ perturbation theories to decipher how nonadiabatic modes, such as a relative velocity between two different components, damp the small-scale matter power spectrum, a mechanism recently described in the literature. In particular, we do an explicit calculation at 1-loop order of this effect. While the 1-loop result eventually breaks down, we show how the damping effect can be fully captured by the help of the eikonal approximation. A relative velocity not only induces mode damping but also creates large-scale anisotropic modulations of the matter power spectrum amplitude. We illustrate this for the Local Group environment.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1209.3662,
  title  = {Power spectra in the eikonal approximation with adiabatic and non-adiabatic modes},
  author = {Francis Bernardeau and Nicolas Van de Rijt and Filippo Vernizzi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.3662},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

16 pages, 13 figures, matches the published PRD version

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:06:26.198Z