The Bianchi IX attractor (Q5950568)

The Bianchi type 9-attractor is also known as ``Mixmaster universe model''. (Note: The author writes, see his ref. 17, ``Mixmaser'', but this is a misprint there.) It has only historical reasons why just this case enjoyed so much interest, because the less developed type 8-attractor is quite similar. The difference between the dynamics of these two cases of homogeneous cosmological models within general relativity and the types 1 to 7 is the following: In types 1 to 7, typically, the approach to the ``big bang''-singularity can be described asymptotically as a certain power of the scale factor(s). In types 8 and 9, however, the dynamical system describing the dynamics is much more involved. Its description is done as follows: For Bianchi type 1, the solutions are known in closed form due to Kasner. For some finite time interval, the solution of type 9 is close to the solution of type 1, thus the Kasner solution represents an attractor. The present review represents a careful development of the subject. It contains several good figures representing Poincaré maps of the dynamical system. The author also discusses curvature invariants and the behaviour of incomplete causal geodesics.