Boundary-value problems in cosmological dynamics

The dynamics of cosmological gravitating system is governed by the Euler and the Poisson equations. Tiny fluctuations near the big bang singularity are amplified by gravitational instability into the observed structure today. Given the current distribution of galaxies and assuming initial homogeneity, dynamic reconstruction methods have been developed to derive the cosmic density and velocity fields back in time. The reconstruction method described here is based on a least action principle formulation of the dynamics of collisionless particles (representing galaxies). Two observational data sets will be considered. The first is the distribution of galaxies which is assumed to be an fair tracer of the mass density field of the dark matter. The second set is measurements of the peculiar velocities (deviations from pure Hubble flow) of galaxies. Given the first data set, the reconstruction method recovers the associated velocity field which can then be compared with the second data set. This comparison constrains the nature of the dark matter and the relation between mass and light in the Universe.