Related papers: Inhomogeneous structure formation may alleviate ne…
We discuss the modified gravity which may produce the current cosmic aceleration of the universe and eliminates the need for dark energy. It is shown that such models where the action quickly grows with the decrease of the curvature define…
A phenomenological formalism is presented in which the apparent acceleration of the universe is generated by cosmic structure formation, without resort to Dark Energy, modifications to gravity, or a local void. The observed acceleration…
Standard models of galaxy formation predict that matter distribution is statistically homogeneous and isotropic and characterized by (i) spatial homogeneity for r<10 Mpc/h, (ii) small-amplitude structures of relatively limited size (i.e.,…
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…
In a homogeneous and isotropic universe with non-zero spatial curvature we consider the effects of gravitational particle production in the dynamics of the universe. We show that the dynamics of the universe in such a background is…
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…
In the standard approach to studying cosmological structure formation, the overall expansion of the Universe is assumed to be homogeneous, with the gravitational effect of inhomogeneities encoded entirely in a Newtonian potential. A topic…
The structure formation in the local Universe is considered within the weak-field modification of General Relativity involving the cosmological constant. This approach enables to describe the dynamics of groups and clusters of galaxies, to…
Observations of distant supernovae indicate that the Universe is now in a phase of accelerated expansion the physical cause of which is a mystery. Formally, this requires the inclusion of a term acting as a negative pressure in the…
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…
The currently available cosmological data yield, as a most striking result, that the expansion rate of the universe seems to be increasing at late times, contrary to the standard (zero cosmological constant) FLRW prediction. The usual…
We discuss the Buchert equations, which describe the average expansion of an inhomogeneous dust universe. In the limit of small perturbations, they reduce to the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker equations. However, when the universe is very…
A new method for constructing exact inhomogeneous universes is presented, that allows variation in 3 dimensions. The resulting spacetime may be statistically uniform on average, or have random, non-repeating variation. The construction…
We propose a model universe in the matter dominated phase described by a FRW background with local inhomogeneities, like our local patch, grown out of the primordial fluctuations. Our sub-horizon local patch consisting of different…
There is an ongoing debate in the literature as to whether the effects of averaging out inhomogeneities (``backreaction'') in Cosmology can be large enough to account for the acceleration of the scale factor in the FLRW models. In…
When do the nonlinear effects of general relativity matter in astrophysical situations? They are obviously relevant for very compact sources of the gravitational field, such as neutron stars or black holes. In this paper I discuss another,…
We review the evidence for recently accelerating cosmological expansion or "dark energy", either a negative pressure constituent in General Relativity (Dark Energy) or modified gravity (Dark Gravity), without any Dark Energy constituent. If…
The large scale distribution of galaxies in the universe displays a complex pattern of clusters, super-clusters, filaments and voids with sizes limited only by the boundaries of the available samples. A quantitative statistical…
In this essay, I present an alternative explanation for the cosmic acceleration which appears as a consequence of recent high redshift Supernova data. In the usual interpretation, this cosmic acceleration is explained by the presence of a…
Probing the geometry of the universe is one of the most important endevours in cosmology. Current observational data from the Cosmic Microwave Background anisotropy (CMB), galaxy surveys and type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) strongly constrain…