Cosmological Backreaction and the Separate Universe Conjecture: Dynamical volume partitioning of Newtonian cosmologies
Abstract
We provide a description of general Newtonian cosmologies for collisionless matter in terms of an exact and dynamical volume partitioning of global realizations of Newtonian models. Employing the formalism for the description of cosmological backreaction, an interaction between the inhomogeneities of the formation of structures in the Universe and their average properties can be analyzed. Our results can be regarded as a tool for many potential applications in the context of Newtonian simulations, but they also provide an exact way to assume analytical properties of the universe models on regional scales in conformity with global integral constraints on their average properties. We discuss approaches in relation to `separate Universe conjectures' in the literature and examine their consistency with the exact partitioning framework. In particular, using the Average Expansion Rate Approximation (AvERA) as an example, we show that identifying locally assigned Friedmannian rates with physical regional expansion rates is constrained by the global Newtonian 3-torus condition. Alternatively, when the simulation cells are interpreted as non-material control volumes, Reynolds transport introduces mass flux and flux-backreaction terms, so that their dynamics is not in general that of independent Friedmann domains. We also discuss the corresponding consistency conditions for stable clustering prescriptions.
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BibTeX
@misc{buchert2026cosmological,
title = {{Cosmological Backreaction and the Separate Universe Conjecture: Dynamical volume partitioning of Newtonian cosmologies}},
author = {Thomas Buchert and Jan J. Ostrowski and Alfred Bovon},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2611.06787},
eprint = {2611.06787},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.06787},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Cosmological Backreaction and the Separate Universe Conjecture: Dynamical volume partitioning of Newtonian cosmologies
AU - Thomas Buchert
AU - Jan J. Ostrowski
AU - Alfred Bovon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/04
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2611.06787
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2611.06787
AB - We provide a description of general Newtonian cosmologies for collisionless matter in terms of an exact and dynamical volume partitioning of global realizations of Newtonian models. Employing the formalism for the description of cosmological backreaction, an interaction between the inhomogeneities of the formation of structures in the Universe and their average properties can be analyzed. Our results can be regarded as a tool for many potential applications in the context of Newtonian simulations, but they also provide an exact way to assume analytical properties of the universe models on regional scales in conformity with global integral constraints on their average properties. We discuss approaches in relation to `separate Universe conjectures' in the literature and examine their consistency with the exact partitioning framework. In particular, using the Average Expansion Rate Approximation (AvERA) as an example, we show that identifying locally assigned Friedmannian rates with physical regional expansion rates is constrained by the global Newtonian 3-torus condition. Alternatively, when the simulation cells are interpreted as non-material control volumes, Reynolds transport introduces mass flux and flux-backreaction terms, so that their dynamics is not in general that of independent Friedmann domains. We also discuss the corresponding consistency conditions for stable clustering prescriptions.
ER -