We show that the full dynamical freedom of the well known Szekeres models allows for the description of elaborated 3--dimensional networks of cold dark matter structures (over--densities and/or density voids) undergoing pancake collapse. By reducing Einsteins field equations to a set of evolution equations, which themselves reduce in the linear limit to evolution equations for linear perturbations, we determine the dynamics of such structures, with the spatial comoving location of each structure uniquely specified by standard early Universe initial conditions. By means of a representative example we examine in detail the density contrast, the Hubble flow and peculiar velocities of structures that evolved, from linear initial data at the last scattering surface, to fully non--linear 10--20 Mpc. scale configurations today. To motivate further research, we provide a qualitative discussion on the connection of Szekeres models with linear perturbations and the pancake collapse of the Zeldovich approximation. This type of structure modelling provides a coarse grained -- but fully relativistic non--linear and non--perturbative -- description of evolving large scale cosmic structures before their virialisation, and as such it has an enormous potential for applications in cosmological research.
We show how the non-linearity of general relativity generates a characteristic non-Gaussian signal in cosmological large-scale structure that we calculate at all perturbative orders in a large scale limit. Newtonian gravity and general relativity provide complementary theoretical frameworks for modelling large-scale structure in $Lambda$CDM cosmology; a relativistic approach is essential to determine initial conditions which can then be used in Newtonian simulations studying the non-linear evolution of the matter density. Most inflationary models in the very early universe predict an almost Gaussian distribution for the primordial metric perturbation, $zeta$. However, we argue that it is the Ricci curvature of comoving-orthogonal spatial hypersurfaces, $R$, that drives structure formation at large scales. We show how the non-linear relation between the spatial curvature, $R$, and the metric perturbation, $zeta$, translates into a specific non-Gaussian contribution to the initial comoving matter density that we calculate for the simple case of an initially Gaussian $zeta$. Our analysis shows the non-linear signature of Einsteins gravity in large-scale structure.
