Related papers: A general test of the Copernican Principle
We present the time drift of the cosmological redshift in a general spherically symmetric spacetime. We demonstrate that its observation would allow us to test the Copernican principle and so determine if our universe is radially…
The discovery ten years ago that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating put in place the present cosmological model, in which the Universe is composed of 4% baryons, 20% dark matter, and 76% dark energy. Yet the underlying cause of…
We pursue a program to confront observations with inhomogeneous extensions of the FLRW metric. The main idea is to test the Copernican principle rather than assuming it a priori. We consider the $\Lambda$CDM model endowed with a spherical…
The (re)introduction of $\Lambda$ into cosmology has spurred debates that touch on central questions in philosophy of science, as well as the foundations of general relativity and particle physics. We provide a systematic assessment of the…
It has been only ~15 years since the discovery of dark energy (although some may argue there were strong indications even earlier). In the short time since measurements of type Ia supernovae indicated an accelerating universe, many other…
In this work, I develop an alternative explanation for the acceleration of the cosmic expansion, which seems to be a result of recent high redshift Supernova data. In the current interpretation, this cosmic acceleration is explained by…
Observations provide increasingly strong evidence that the universe is accelerating. This revolutionary advance in cosmological observations confronts theoretical cosmology with a tremendous challenge, which it has so far failed to meet.…
If general relativity (GR) describes the expansion of the Universe, the observed cosmic acceleration implies the existence of a `dark energy'. However, while the Universe is on average homogeneous on large scales, it is inhomogeneous on…
Major observational efforts in the coming decade are designed to probe the equation of state of dark energy. Measuring a deviation of the equation-of-state parameter w from -1 would indicate a dark energy that cannot be represented solely…
The standard model of cosmology assumes that the Universe can be described to hover around a homogeneous-isotropic solution of Einstein's general theory of relativity. This description needs (sometimes hidden) hypotheses that restrict the…
Below scales of about 100/h Mpc our universe displays a complex inhomogeneous structure dominated by voids, with clusters of galaxies in sheets and filaments. The coincidence that cosmic expansion appears to start accelerating at the epoch…
We develop a new model-independent method to probe the constancy of the speed of light $c$. In our method, the degeneracy between the cosmic curvature and the speed of light can be eliminated, which makes the test more natural and general.…
A phenomenological formalism is presented in which the apparent acceleration of the universe is generated by large-scale structure formation, thus eliminating the coincidence and magnitude fine-tuning problems of the Cosmological Constant…
The accelerated expansion of the Universe is impressively well described by a cosmological constant. However, the observed value of the cosmological constant is much smaller than expected based on quantum field theories. Recent efforts to…
The current cosmological dark sector (dark matter plus dark energy) is challenging our comprehension about the physical processes taking place in the Universe. Recently, some authors tried to falsify the basic underlying assumptions of such…
The standard model of cosmology is based on the existence of homogeneous surfaces as the background arena for structure formation. Homogeneity underpins both general relativistic and modified gravity models and is central to the way in…
It is argued that the discovery of cosmic acceleration could have been anticipated on thermodynamic grounds, namely, the generalized second law and the approach to equilibrium at large scale factor. Therefore, the existence of dark energy…
The discovery of cosmic acceleration has stimulated theorists to consider dark energy or modifications to Einstein's General Relativity as possible explanations. The last decade has seen advances in theories that go beyond smooth dark…
General relativistic entropic acceleration theory may explain the present cosmic acceleration from first principles without the need of introducing a cosmological constant. Following the covariant formulation of non-equilibrium phenomena in…
Is Dark Energy justified as an alternative to the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ in order to explain the acceleration of the cosmic expansion ? It turns out that a straightforward dimensional analysis of Einstein equation provides us with…