The imprints of the Great Attractor and the Virgo cluster on the microwave background

Abstract

A fully non-linear model based on the Tolman-Bondi solution of the Einstein equations is used to describe the Great Attractor and the Virgo cluster. The background is a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe, and the inhomogeneity develops from physically motivated initial profiles of the energy density and the peculiar velocity. Accurate numerical integrations of the field equations of the null geodesics are carried out, and thus the angular temperature distribution of the microwave background produced by the chosen overdensities is found. The observer is located in the Local Group. The quadrupole Q produced by each overdensity is computed and divided into two parts: the relativistic Doppler quadrupole Q D and the reduced quadrupole Q R = Q − Q D