English

The Least Action Method, CDM and $\Omega$

Astrophysics 2009-10-22 v1

Abstract

Peebles has suggested an interesting method to trace back in time positions of galaxies called the least action method. This method applied on the Local Group galaxies seems to indicate that we live in an Ω0.1\Omega\approx 0.1 Universe. We have studied a CDM N-body simulation with Ω=0.2\Omega=0.2 and H=50kms1/MpcH=50 kms^{-1}/Mpc and compare trajectories traced back from the Least Action Principle and the center of mass of the particle forming CDM halos. We show that the agreement between these set of trajectories is at best qualitative. We also show that the line of sight peculiar velocities are underestimated. This discrepancy is due to orphans, CDM particles which do not end up in halos. By varying the density parameter Ω\Omega in the least action principle we show that using this method we would underestimate the density of the Universe by a factor of 4-5.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9411002,
  title  = {The Least Action Method, CDM and $\Omega$},
  author = {A. M. Dunn and Raymond Laflamme},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9411002},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

8 pages, Plain Tex, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-22T09:24:44.469Z