Related papers: Light propagation in inhomogeneous and anisotropic…
In the standard cosmological framework, the Hubble diagram is interpreted by assuming that the light emitted by standard candles propagates in a spatially homogeneous and isotropic spacetime. However, the light from "point sources"--such as…
Cosmic structures determine how light propagates through the Universe and consequently must be taken into account in the interpretation of observations. In the standard cosmological model at the largest scales, such structures are either…
We consider the effect on the propagation of light of inhomogeneities with sizes of order 10 Mpc or larger. The Universe is approximated through a variation of the Swiss-cheese model. The spherical inhomogeneities are void-like, with…
This paper analyses cosmological observations within inhomogeneous and exact solutions of the Einstein equations. In some way the analyses presented here can be freed from assumptions such as small amplitude of the density contrast. The…
The cosmological principle asserts that on sufficiently large scales the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic on spatial slices. To deviate from this principle requires a departure from the FLRW ansatz. In this paper we analyze the…
Cosmology is built on a relativistic understanding of gravity, where the geometry of the Universe is dynamically determined by matter and energy. In the cosmological concordance model, gravity is described by General Relativity, and it is…
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…
The Universe is not completely homogeneous. Even if it is sufficiently so on large scales, it is very inhomogeneous at small scales, and this has an effect on light propagation, so that the distance as a function of redshift, which in many…
This article proposes a comprehensive analysis of light propagation in an anisotropic and spatially homogeneous Bianchi I universe. After recalling that null geodesics are easily determined in such a spacetime, we derive the expressions of…
In this manuscript, we show that three fundamental building blocks are supporting the Cosmological Principle. The first of them states that there is a special frame in the universe where the spatial geometry is intrinsically homogeneous and…
This thesis concerns the compatibility of inhomogeneous cosmologies with our present understanding of the universe. It is a problem of some interest to find the class of all relativistic cosmological models which are capable of providing a…
The cosmological principle is fundamental to the standard cosmological model. It assumes that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic on very large scales. As the basic assumption, it must stand the test of various observations. In this…
We study the effect of inhomogeneities on light propagation. The Sachs equations are solved numerically in the Swiss-Cheese models with inhomogeneities modelled by the Lemaitre-Tolman solutions. Our results imply that, within the models we…
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…
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…
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 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 reformulate the transport equation which determines the size, shape and orientation of infinitesimal light beams in arbitrary spacetimes. The behaviour of such light beams near vertices and conjugate points is investigated, with special…
On the scale of the light beams subtended by small sources, e.g. supernovae, matter cannot be accurately described as a fluid, which questions the applicability of standard cosmic lensing to those cases. In this article, we propose a new…
The interpretation of cosmological observations relies on a notion of an average Universe, which is usually considered as the homogeneous and isotropic Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model. However, inhomogeneities may…