The Local Hubble Flow: Is it a Manifestation of Dark Energy?

TL;DR

This study uses constrained dark matter simulations to investigate whether dark energy influences the local Hubble flow, finding no significant local effects in either LCDM or OCDM cosmologies.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates through simulations that dark energy does not affect local dynamics, challenging recent claims about its local manifestation.

Findings

Dark energy does not influence the local Hubble flow.

Simulations in LCDM and OCDM yield similar local flow results.

Local structure reproduces observed galaxy distributions.

Abstract

To study the local Hubble flow, we have run constrained dark matter (DM) simulations of the Local Group (LG) in the concordance LCDM and OCDM cosmologies, with identical cosmological parameters apart from the Lambda term. The simulations were performed within a computational box of 64 h^{-1}Mpc centred on the LG. The initial conditions were constrained by the observed peculiar velocities of galaxies and positions of X-ray nearby clusters of galaxies. The simulations faithfully reproduce the nearby large scale structure, and in particular the Local Supercluster and the Virgo cluster. LG-like objects have been selected from the DM halos so as to closely resemble the dynamical properties of the LG. Both the LCDM and OCDM simulations show very similar local Hubble flow around the LG-like objects. It follows that, contrary to recent statements, the dark energy (DE) does not manifest itself in the local dynamics.