Elastic rigid rod in an expanding universe

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Correia, Simão, Natário, José, Silva, Jorge Drumond
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Correia, Simão
Natário, José
Silva, Jorge Drumond
author_facet Correia, Simão
Natário, José
Silva, Jorge Drumond
contents We study the motion of a rigid elastic rod, initially set in its relaxed state along a spacelike geodesic, in an expanding Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universe. This leads to an initial boundary value problem (IBVP) for a nonlinear wave equation whose nonlinearity depends on a parameter $κ\geq 0$, related to the ratio between the rod's length and the cosmological scale. We show that if $κ$ is small enough then the solution to the IBVP is global in time and bounded, meaning that the rod's length oscillates around its initial value. For greater values of $κ$, however, the solution to the IBVP blows up in finite coordinate time, indicating that the rod is infinitely stretched by the cosmological expansion. This supports the widely held belief that sufficiently small bound systems do not follow the Hubble flow, whereas larger systems may do so. Similar conclusions apply to the tethered galaxy version of this problem, where the rod is used to connect two point masses (which results in nonlinear boundary conditions for the IBVP).
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_21227
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Elastic rigid rod in an expanding universe
Correia, Simão
Natário, José
Silva, Jorge Drumond
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Mathematical Physics
Analysis of PDEs
35L05, 74K05, 83C10, 83C55
We study the motion of a rigid elastic rod, initially set in its relaxed state along a spacelike geodesic, in an expanding Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universe. This leads to an initial boundary value problem (IBVP) for a nonlinear wave equation whose nonlinearity depends on a parameter $κ\geq 0$, related to the ratio between the rod's length and the cosmological scale. We show that if $κ$ is small enough then the solution to the IBVP is global in time and bounded, meaning that the rod's length oscillates around its initial value. For greater values of $κ$, however, the solution to the IBVP blows up in finite coordinate time, indicating that the rod is infinitely stretched by the cosmological expansion. This supports the widely held belief that sufficiently small bound systems do not follow the Hubble flow, whereas larger systems may do so. Similar conclusions apply to the tethered galaxy version of this problem, where the rod is used to connect two point masses (which results in nonlinear boundary conditions for the IBVP).
title Elastic rigid rod in an expanding universe
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Mathematical Physics
Analysis of PDEs
35L05, 74K05, 83C10, 83C55
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21227