Critical Index and Fixed Point in the Transfer of Power in Nonlinear Gravitational Clustering

Abstract

We investigate the transfer of power between different scales and coupling of modes during non-linear evolution of gravitational clustering in an expanding universe. We start with a power spectrum of density fluctuations that is exponentially damped outside a narrow range of scales and use numerical simulations to study evolution of this power spectrum. Non-Linear effects generate power at other scales with most power flowing from larger to smaller scales. The ``cascade'' of power leads to equipartition of energy at smaller scales, implying a power spectrum with index $n\approx -1$. We find that such a spectrum is produced in the range $1 < \delta < 200$ for density contrast $\delta$. This result continues to hold even when small scale power is added to the initial power spectrum. Semi-analytic models for gravitational clustering suggest a tendency for the effective index to move towards a critical index $n_c\approx -1$ in this range. For n<n_c, power in this range grows faster than linear rate, while if n>n_c, it grows at a slower rate - thereby changing the index closer to n_c. At scales larger than the narrow range of scales with initial power, a k^4 tail is produced. We demonstrate that non-linear small scales do not effect the growth of perturbations at larger scales.Comment: Title changed. Added two figures and some discussion. Postscript file containing all the figures is available at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jasjeet/papers/powspec.ps.gz Accepted for publication in the MNRA