Shear-free perturbations of Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker universes

A surprising exact result for the Einstein field equations is that if pressure-free matter is moving in a shear-free way, then it must be either expansion-free or rotation-free. It has been suggested this result is also true for any barotropic perfect fluid, but a proof has remained elusive. We consider the case of barotropic perfect-fluid solutions linearized about a Robertson-Walker geometry, and prove that the result remains true except for the case of a specific highly nonlinear equation of state. We argue that this equation of state is nonphysical, and hence the result is true in the linearized case for all physically realistic barotropic perfect fluids. This result, which is not true in Newtonian cosmology, demonstrates that the linearized solutions, believed to result in standard local Newtonian theory, do not always give the usual behavior of Newtonian solutions.