Numerical study of a perturbed Einstein-de Sitter cosmological model

Given the ever-increasing scale of structures discovered in the universe, Einstein's equations are solved numerically, under simplifying assumptions, to examine how this lack of uniformity affects the metric of Einstein-de Sitter cosmology. The results confirm the qualitative conclusion of Barrow, that a large density contrast is compatible with much smaller metric perturbations. The contribution of this peculiar gravity to the redshift might complicate studies of peculiar motions of galaxies, although it appears that the distortion is small for nearby clusters. 13 refs