Propagation of self-gravitating density waves in the deDonder gauge: the physical importance of gauge solutions and the problem of initial conditions

Abstract

The propagation of perturbations on a spatially flat Robertson-Walker background is studied within linear perturbation theory in deDonder gauge and for comparison in synchronous gauge. The metric perturbations should be determined uniquely by the density/pressure perturbations, therefore only two initial conditions, namely for the density contrast and its time derivative, should be needed. Since the number of fundamental solutions for the density perturbations is higher than 2 in both gauges (6 resp. 3) an additional reduction of possible initial conditions, resp. a physically motivated exclusion of solutions, is needed. It is shown that the common treatment of excluding the so-called gauge solutions (solutions which can be gauged to zero in an already chosen gauge) leads to unphysical results. If gauge solutions are excluded the density perturbation solutions are the same in both gauges. But the correct Newtonian limit — which is present in deDonder gauge but not in synchronous gauge — is bound to the differences in the two gauges for large spatial scales of perturbations. Furthermore, compressional wave solutions should vanish for infinite spatial scales of perturbations (isotropy), but this is guaranteed in deDonder gauge by gauge solutions again. Gauge solutions should therefore not be taken as unphysical.