Related papers: Inhomogeneous cosmological models: exact solutions…
We review observational tests for the homogeneity of the Universe on large scales. Redshift and peculiar velocity surveys, radio sources, the X-Ray Background, the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest and the Cosmic Microwave Background are used to set…
We quantize an inhomogeneous cosmological model using techniques that include polymeric quantization. More explicitly, we construct well defined operators to represent the constraints and find the physical Hilbert space formed by their…
Current cosmological observations, when interpreted within the framework of a homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model, strongly suggest that the Universe is entering a period of accelerating expansion.…
Inhomogeneities are introduced in loop quantum cosmology using regular lattice states, with a kinematical arena similar to that in homogeneous models considered earlier. The framework is intended to encapsulate crucial features of…
While the use of numerical general relativity for modeling astrophysical phenomena and compact objects is commonplace, the application to cosmological scenarios is only just beginning. Here, we examine the expansion of a spacetime using the…
We discuss inhomogeneous cosmological models which satisfy the Copernican principle. We construct some inhomogeneous cosmological models starting from the ansatz that the all the observers in the models view an isotropic cosmic microwave…
In a universe where, according to the standard cosmological models, some 97% of the total mass-energy is still "missing in action" it behooves us to spend at least a little effort critically assessing and exploring radical alternatives.…
In this thesis we investigate cosmological models more general than the isotropic and homogeneous Friedmann-Lemaitre models. We focus on cosmologies with one spatial degree of freedom, whose matter content consists of a perfect fluid and…
Recently, spatially inhomogeneous cosmological models have been proposed as an alternative to the LCDM model, with the aim of reproducing the late time dynamics of the Universe without introducing a cosmological constant or dark energy.…
In standard perturbation approaches and N-body simulations, inhomogeneities are described to evolve on a predefined background cosmology, commonly taken as the homogeneous-isotropic solutions of Einstein's field equations…
We perform three-dimensional numerical relativity simulations of homogeneous and inhomogeneous expanding spacetimes, with a view towards quantifying non-linear effects from cosmological inhomogeneities. We demonstrate fourth-order…
This article looks at how inhomogeneous spacetime models may be significant for cosmology. First it looks at how the averaging process may affect large scale dynamics, with backreaction effects leading to effective contributions to the…
The Cosmological Principle, which states that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic (when averaged on large scales), is the foundational assumption of Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) cosmologies such as the current standard…
We challenge the widely held belief that the cosmological principle is an obvious consequence of the observed isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation, combined with the Copernican principle. We perform a detailed analysis of a…
We focus on weak inhomogeneous models of the Universe at low redshifts, described by the Lema\^itre-Tolman-Bondi (LTB) metric. The principal aim of this work is to compare the evolution of inhomogeneous perturbations in the $\Lambda$CDM…
Cosmological observables are used to construct cosmological models. Since cosmological observations are limited to the light cone, a fixed number of observables (even measured to arbitrary accuracy) may not uniquely determine a cosmological…
In quantum cosmology, one applies quantum physics to the whole universe. While no unique version and no completely well-defined theory is available yet, the framework gives rise to interesting conceptual, mathematical and physical…
The apparent accelerating expansion of the Universe is forcing us to examine the foundational aspects of the standard model of cosmology -- in particular, the fact that dark energy is a direct consequence of the homogeneity assumption. We…
It is generally assumed that on sufficiently large scales the Universe is well-described as a homogeneous, isotropic FRW cosmology with a dark energy. Does the formation of nonlinear cosmic inhomogeneities produce a significant effect on…
In order to quantitatively test the ability of averaged inhomogeneous cosmologies to correctly describe observations of the large scale properties of the Universe, we introduce a smoothed template metric corresponding to a constant spatial…