Cosmological perturbation theory and the spherical collapse model -: I.: Gaussian initial conditions

We present a simple and intuitive approximation for solving the perturbation theory (PT) of small cosmic fluctuations. We consider only the spherically symmetric or monopole contribution to the PT integrals, which yields the exact result for tree-graphs (i.e. at leading order). We find that the non-linear evolution in Lagrangian space is then given by a simple local transformation over the initial conditions, although it is not local in Euler space. This transformation is found to be described by the spherical collapse (SC) dynamics, as it is the exact solution in the shearless (and therefore local) approximation in Lagrangian space. Taking advantage of this property, it is straightforward to derive the one-point cumulants, xi(J), for both the unsmoothed and smoothed density fields to arbitrary order in the perturbative regime. To leading-order this reproduces, and provides us with a simple explanation for, the exact results obtained by Bernardeau. We then show that the SC model leads to accurate estimates for the next corrective terms when compared with the results derived in the exact perturbation theory making use of the loop calculations. The agreement is within a few per cent for the hierarchical ratios S-J = xi(J)/xi(2)(J-1). We compare our analytic results with N-body simulations, which turn out to be in very good agreement up to scales where sigma approximate to 1. A similar treatment is presented to estimate higher order corrections in the Zel'dovich approximation. These results represent a powerful and readily usable tool to produce analytical predictions that describe the gravitational clustering of large-scale structure in the weakly non-linear regime.