Related papers: Lightcone Averaging and Precision Cosmology
Todays astrometry has reached the micro-arcsecond level in angular measurements of celestial objects. The next generations of astrometric facilities are aiming at the sub-micro-arcsecond scale. Sub-micro-arcsecond astrometry requires a…
Here we present 1701 light curves of 1550 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) that will be used to infer cosmological parameters as part of the Pantheon+ SN analysis and the SH0ES (Supernovae and H0 for the Equation of…
Most of cosmological observables are light-propagated. I will present coordinates adapted to the propagation of null-like signals as observed by a geodesic observer. These "geodesic light-cone (GLC) coordinates" are general, adapted to…
Photons traveling cosmological distances through the inhomogeneous Universe experience a great variation in their in-medium induced effective mass. Using the EAGLE suite of hydrodynamical simulations, we infer the free electron distribution…
Using a multiple-lens plane algorithm, we study light propagation in inhomogeneous universes, for 43 different COBE-normalized Cold Dark Matter models, with various values of the density parameter Omega_0, cosmological constant lambda_0,…
We study effects of inhomogeneities on distance measures in an exact relativistic Swiss-cheese model of the universe, focusing on the distance modulus. The model has LCDM background dynamics, and the `holes' are non-symmetric structures…
We study the impact of cosmic inhomogeneities on the interpretation of SNe observations. We build an inhomogeneous universe model that can confront supernova data and yet is reasonably well compatible with the Copernican Principle. Our…
Light from `point sources' such as supernovae is observed with a beam width of order of the sources' size - typically less than 1 AU. Such a beam probes matter and curvature distributions that are very different from coarse-grained…
With the era of precision cosmology upon us, and upcoming surveys expected to further improve the precision of our observations below the percent level, ensuring the accuracy of our theoretical cosmological model is of the utmost…
Measurements of the luminosity distance have played a key role in discovering the late-time cosmic acceleration. However, when accounting for inhomogeneities in the Universe, its interpretation has been plagued with infrared divergences in…
Using a recently proposed gauge invariant formulation of light-cone averaging, together with adapted "geodesic light-cone" coordinates, we show how an "induced backreaction" effect emerges, in general, from correlated fluctuations in the…
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…
We develop a second-order cosmological perturbation theory on a background geometry expressed in terms of light-cone coordinates, extending the first-order analyses available in the literature. In particular, we investigate the gauge…
Soon the number of type Ia supernova (SN) measurements should exceed 100,000. Understanding the effect of weak lensing by matter structures on the supernova brightness will then be more important than ever. Although SN lensing is usually…
I consider some of the issues we face in trying to understand dark energy. Huge fluctuations in the unknown dark energy equation of state can be hidden in distance data, so I argue that model-independent tests which signal if the…
We examine the properties of a recently proposed observationally viable alternative to homogeneous cosmology with smooth dark energy, the timescape cosmology. In the timescape model cosmic acceleration is realized as an apparent effect…
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…
The aim of this paper is to check if the models with realistic inhomogeneous matter distribution and without cosmological constant can explain the dimming of the supernovae in such a way that it can be interpreted as an acceleration of the…
We outline the key-steps toward the construction of a physical, fully relativistic cosmology. The influence of inhomogeneities on the effective evolution history of the Universe is encoded in backreaction terms and expressed through…
We review some results of the past 12 years derived from optical and infrared photometry of Type Ia supernovae. A combination of optical and infrared photometry allows us to determine accurately the extinction along the line of sight. The…