STUDY OF THE QUASI-ISOTROPIC SOLUTION NEAR THE COSMOLOGICAL SINGULARITY IN THE PRESENCE OF BULK VISCOSITY

Abstract

We analyze the dynamical behavior of a quasi-isotropic universe in the presence of a cosmological fluid endowed with bulk viscosity. We express the viscosity coefficient as a power law of the fluid energy density: ζ = ζ0∊s. Then we fix s = 1/2 as the only case in which viscosity plays a significant role in the singularity physics but does not dominate the universe dynamics (as required by its microscopic perturbative origin). The parameter ζ0is left free to define the intensity of the viscous effects.In spirit of the work by Lifshitz and Khalatnikov on the quasi-isotropic solution, we analyze both Einstein and hydrodynamic equations up to first and second order in time. As a result, we get a power law solution existing only in correspondence to a restricted domain of ζ0.