Can Structure Formation Influence the Cosmological Evolution?

Abstract

The backreaction of structure formation influences the cosmological evolution equation for the homogenous and isotropic average metric. In a cold dark matter universe this effect leads only to small corrections unless a substantial fraction of matter is located in regions where strong gravitational fields evolve in time. A``cosmic virial theorem'' states that the sum of gravitational and matter pressure vanishes and therefore relates the average kinetic energy to a suitable average of the Newtonian potential. In presence of a scalar ``cosmon'' field mediating quintessence, however, cosmology could be modified if local cosmon fluctuations grow large. We speculate that this may trigger the accelerated expansion of the universe after the formation of structure.