Perturbations in the interacting vacuum

TL;DR

This paper investigates how cosmological perturbations evolve in a universe with an interacting vacuum, using covariant formalism, and explores implications for structure formation and model constraints.

Contribution

It introduces two models of interacting vacuum, derives their perturbation evolution equations, and analyzes their growth, connecting theoretical predictions with observational constraints.

Findings

Perturbations grow over time, enabling structure formation in accelerated backgrounds.

Model parameters influence perturbation amplitudes and scaling, allowing for observational constraints.

Standard cosmology is recovered when interaction parameters vanish.

Abstract

In this study, we present the evolution of cosmological perturbations in a universe consisting of standard matter and interacting vacuum. We use the $1 + 3$ covariant formalism in perturbation framework and consider two different models for the interacting vacuum namely a linear interacting model and interaction with creation pressure model. For both models, we derive the evolution equations governing the growth of linear perturbations for both radiation and dust dominated Universe. We find numerical solutions in appropriate limits namely long and short wavelengths. For both models, the perturbations grow with time (decay with redshift), showing that structure formation is possible in an accelerated cosmic background. The perturbation amplitudes and their relative scalings with those of standard model of cosmology depend on the values of the interaction parameters considered, and in a way that can be used to constrain the models using existing and future large scale structure data. In the vanishing limits of the coupling parameters of the interaction, we show that standard cosmology, both background and perturbed, is recovered.