Gravitational Instability in Presence of Bulk Viscosity: the Jeans Mass and the Quasi-Isotropic Solution

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of the gravitational instability in presence of bulk viscosity both in Newtonian regime and in the fully-relativistic approach. The standard Jeans Mechanism and the Quasi-Isotropic Solution are treated expressing the bulk-viscosity coefficient $\zeta$ as a power-law of the fluid energy density $\rho$, i.e., $\zeta=\zo\rho^{s}$. In the Newtonian regime, the perturbation evolution is founded to be damped by viscosity and the top-down mechanism of structure fragmentation is suppressed. The value of the Jeans Mass remains unchanged also in presence of viscosity. In the relativistic approach, we get a power-law solution existing only in correspondence to a restricted domain of $\zo$.