GENERAL RELATIVISTIC EFFECTS ON NONLINEAR POWER SPECTRA

The nonlinear nature of Einstein's equation introduces genuine relativistic higher order corrections to the usual Newtonian fluid equations describing the evolution of cosmological perturbations. We study the effect of such novel nonlinearities on the next-to-leading order matter and velocity power spectra for the case of a pressureless, irrotational fluid in a flat Friedmann background. We find that pure general relativistic corrections are negligibly small over all scales. Our result guarantees that, in the current paradigm of standard cosmology, one can safely use Newtonian cosmology even in nonlinear regimes.