Dynamics of locally rotationally symmetric Bianchi type VIII cosmologies with anisotropic matter

This paper is a study of the effects of anisotropic matter sources on the qualitative evolution of spatially homogenous cosmologies of Bianchi type VIII. The analysis is based on a dynamical system approach and makes use of an anisotropic matter family developed by Calogero and Heinzle which generalises perfect fluids and provides a measure of deviation from isotropy. Thereby the role of perfect fluid solutions is put into a broader context. The results of this paper concern the past and future asymptotic dynamics of locally rotationally symmetric solutions of type VIII with anisotropic matter. It is shown that solutions whose matter source is sufficiently close to being isotropic exhibit the same qualitative dynamics as perfect fluid solutions. However a high degree of anisotropy of the matter model can cause dynamics to differ significantly from the vacuum and perfect fluid case.