Effects of dynamical friction on perturbations for evolving dark energy

Abstract

We explore the impact of dynamical friction on scales where the linear growth factor and the spherical collapse model can be applied and show its influence on the evolution of perturbations. In particular, considering smooth and clustering dark energy models, we describe the role played by friction by selecting two main hierarchical models, i.e., the first where the friction term is proportional to the Hubble rate, whereas the second where friction is induced by the dark energy pressure. The second approach generalises the first and translates the idea that pressure is a general relativistic effect, motivating why friction might arise once barotropic dark energy fluids are considered. The corresponding effects of friction are investigated at the level of linear and nonlinear perturbations, using the formalism of the spherical collapse model. Whilst dynamical friction has very small effects and thus it cannot be excluded a priori, dissipative pressure friction leads to a substantial slow down in the evolution of perturbations. This can be inferred particularly from the halo mass function, for which we also employ corrections due to dark energy clustering. To this end, in order to discern detectable deviations from the standard cosmological model, we thus highlight where dissipation effects might play a significant role at large scales.