Perturbative growth of cosmological correlations

Abstract

We briefly describe the results of our recent detailed analysis, using the BBGKY hierarchy, of the perturbative evolution of correlation functions in cosmological models. The equations for the evolutions of the two and three point correlation functions that are discussed here can be used to study the growth of clustering in the weakly non1inear regime for various kinds of initial conditions. They can also be used to test approximation schemes which are currently used to describe the nonlinear growth of density perturbations. As an example, we present the form of the three point correlation function that arises from Gaussian initial conditions in an Ω = 1 universe. This does not have the 'hierarchical' form often assumed.