3.2 Numerical methods3 Singularities in Cosmological Models3 Singularities in Cosmological Models

3.1 Singularities in spatially homogeneous cosmologies

The generic singularity in spatially homogeneous cosmologies is reasonably well understood. The approach to it asymptotically falls into two classes. The first, called asymptotically velocity term dominated (AVTD) [94, 165Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article], refers to a cosmology that approaches the Kasner (vacuum, Bianchi I) solution [171Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article] as tex2html_wrap_inline1996 . (Spatially homogeneous universes can be described as a sequence of homogeneous spaces labeled by tex2html_wrap_inline1866 . Here we shall choose tex2html_wrap_inline1866 so that tex2html_wrap_inline2002 coincides with the singularity.) An example of such a solution is the vacuum Bianchi II model [236Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article] which begins with a fixed set of Kasner-like anisotropic expansion rates, and, possibly, makes one change of the rates in a prescribed way (Mixmaster-like bounce) and then continues to tex2html_wrap_inline2002 as a fixed Kasner solution. In contrast are the homogeneous cosmologies which display Mixmaster dynamics such as vacuum Bianchi VIII and IX [22Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article, 187Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article, 133] and Bianchi VI tex2html_wrap_inline2006 and Bianchi I with a magnetic field [178Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article, 29Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article, 177Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article]. Jantzen [168Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article] has discussed other examples. Mixmaster dynamics describes an approach to the singularity which is a sequence of Kasner epochs with a prescription, originally due to Belinskii, Khalatnikov, and Lifshitz (BKL) [22Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article], for relating one Kasner epoch to the next. Some of the Mixmaster bounces (era changes) display sensitivity to initial conditions one usually associates with chaos, and in fact Mixmaster dynamics is chaotic [86Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article, 194Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article]. Note that we consider an epoch to be a subunit of an era . In some of the literature, this usage is reversed. The vacuum Bianchi I (Kasner) solution is distinguished from the other Bianchi types in that the spatial scalar curvature tex2html_wrap_inline2008, (proportional to) the minisuperspace (MSS) potential [187Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article, 227Jump To The Next Citation Point In The Article], vanishes identically. But tex2html_wrap_inline2008 arises in other Bianchi types due to spatial dependence of the metric in a coordinate basis. Thus an AVTD singularity is also characterized as a regime in which terms containing or arising from spatial derivatives no longer influence the dynamics. This means that the Mixmaster models do not have an AVTD singularity since the influence of the spatial derivatives (through the MSS potential) never disappears - there is no last bounce. A more general review of numerical cosmology has been given by Anninos [4].

3.2 Numerical methods3 Singularities in Cosmological Models3 Singularities in Cosmological Models

image Numerical Approaches to Spacetime Singularities
Beverly K. Berger
http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2002-1
© Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. ISSN 1433-8351
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