The effective field theory of cosmological large scale structures

A bstract Large scale structure surveys will likely become the next leading cosmological probe. In our universe, matter perturbations are large on short distances and small at long scales, i.e. strongly coupled in the UV and weakly coupled in the IR. To make precise analytical predictions on large scales, we develop an effective field theory formulated in terms of an IR effective fluid characterized by several parameters, such as speed of sound and viscosity. These parameters, determined by the UV physics described by the Boltzmann equation, are measured from N -body simulations. We find that the speed of sound of the effective fluid is $ c_s^2 \approx {1}{0^{{ - {6}}}}{c^{2}} $ and that the viscosity…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 1068380, PHY-1068380, PHY-0756174
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy

  Awards: DE-FG02-12ER41854, DE-FG02-, DE-FG02
• SN
  SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory