Non-equilibrium statistical field theory for classical particles: Linear and mildly non-linear evolution of cosmological density power spectra

Abstract: We use the non-equlibrium statistical field theory for classical particles, recently developed by Mazenko and Das and Mazenko, together with the free generating functional we have previously derived for point sets initially correlated in phase space, to calculate the time evolution of power spectra in the free theory, i.e. neglecting particle interactions. We provide expressions taking linear and quadratic momentum correlations into account. Up to this point, the expressions are general with respect to the free propagator of the microscopic degrees of freedom. We then specialise the propagator to that expected for particles in cosmology treated within the Zel'dovich approximation and show that, to linear order in the momentum correlations, the linear growth of the cosmological power spectrum is reproduced. Quadratic momentum correlations return a first contribution to the non-linear evolution of the power spectrum, for which we derive a simple closed expression valid for arbitrary wave numbers. This expression is a convolution of the initial density power spectrum with itself, multiplied by a mode-coupling kernel. We also derive the bispectrum expected in this theory within these approximations and show that its connected part reproduces almost, but not quite, the bispectrum expected in Eulerian perturbation theory of the density contrast.