The post-Newtonian (PN) perturbative framework has been successful in understanding the slow-motion, weak fi eld limit of Einstein's theory of gravity on solar system scales, and for isolated astrophysical systems. The parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism extended the PN framework to put very tight constraints on deviations from Einstein's theory on the aforementioned scales and systems. In this work, we extended and applied the post-Newtonian formalism to cosmological scales. We fi rst used it to construct a cosmological model to understand the effect of regularly arranged point sources on the background expansion. Here we found that at higher orders we obtained a small radiation-like correction to the standard Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) equations, for a matter-dominated universe. This radiation-like correction was purely due to the inhomogeneity of our model, and the non-linearity of Einstein's eld equations. We also extended the post-Newtonian formalism to include other forms of matter that are cosmologically relevant, such as radiation and a cosmological constant, and studied the non-linear effects they might have on the background expansion. Then we constructed an extension of the parameterized post-Newtonian formalism (PPN) to cosmological scales. We used it to parameterize the background expansion of the universe as well as rst-order perturbations in cosmology, using four functions of time. In the future, this could allow us to put constraints on deviations from Einstein's theory of gravity on cosmological scales. We gave examples of how our parameterization would work for dark energy models and scalar-tensor and vector-tensor theories of gravity. In the nal part of this work, we studied how light propagation behaves in an inhomogeneous post-Newtonian cosmology with matter and a cosmological constant. We used it to understand the effect that inhomogeneities would have on observables such as angular diameter distances as compared to those that are expected from a homogeneous and isotropic FLRW universe.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:765989 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Sanghai, Viraj A. A. |
| Publisher | Queen Mary, University of London |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/25942 |
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