Large-scale peculiar velocity fields: Newtonian vs relativistic treatment

Abstract

We employ a perturbative analysis to study the evolution of large-scale peculiar velocity fields within the framework of Newtonian gravity and then compare our results to those of the corresponding relativistic treatment. In so doing, we use the same mathematical formalism and apply the same physical approach. This facilitates a direct and transparent comparison between the two treatments. Our study recovers and extends the familiar Newtonian results on the one hand, while on the other it shows that the Newtonian analysis leads to substantially weaker growth-rates for the peculiar velocity field, compared to the relativistic approach. This implies that, by using Newton's rather than Einstein's theory, one could seriously underestimate the overall kinematic evolution of cosmological peculiar motions. We are also in the position to identify the reason the two theories arrive at such considerably different results and conclusions.