Cosmic Accelerations Characterize the Instability of the Critical Friedmann Spacetime

TL;DR

This paper characterizes the instability of the critical Friedmann spacetime to radial perturbations and identifies a stable family of solutions that explain cosmic accelerations without dark energy.

Contribution

It introduces a new family of solutions that describe the evolution of underdense perturbations and their role in cosmic acceleration.

Findings

Identifies the instability of the critical Friedmann spacetime to smooth radial perturbations.

Defines a maximal asymptotically stable family of solutions $\\mathcal{F}$.

Shows solutions in $\\mathcal{F}$ can produce accelerations without dark energy.

Abstract

We give a definitive characterization of the instability of the pressureless ($p=0$) critical ($k=0$) Friedmann spacetime to smooth radial perturbations. We use this to characterize the global accelerations away from $k\leq0$ Friedmann spacetimes induced by the instability in the underdense case. The analysis begins by incorporating the Friedmann spacetimes into a mathematical analysis of smooth spherically symmetric solutions of the Einstein field equations expressed in self-similar coordinates $(t,\xi)$ with $\xi=\frac{r}{t}<1$, conceived to realize the critical Friedmann spacetime as an unstable saddle rest point $SM$. We identify a new maximal asymptotically stable family $\mathcal{F}$ of smooth outwardly expanding solutions which globally characterize the evolution of underdense perturbations. Solutions in $\mathcal{F}$ align with a $k<0$ Friedmann spacetime at early times, generically introduce accelerations away from $k<0$ Friedmann spacetimes at intermediate times and then decay back to the same $k<0$ Friedmann spacetime as $t\to\infty$ uniformly at each fixed radius $r>0$. We propose $\mathcal{F}$ as the maximal asymptotically stable family of solutions into which generic underdense perturbations of the unstable critical Friedmann spacetime will evolve and naturally admit accelerations away from Friedmann spacetimes within the dynamics of solutions of Einstein's original field equations, that is, without recourse to a cosmological constant or dark energy.