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 study, inhomogeneities may partially mimic the accelerated expansion of the Universe provided the light propagates through regions with lower than the average density. The effect of inhomogeneities is small and full randomization of the photons' trajectories reduces it to an insignificant level.
In view of interpreting the cosmological observations precisely, especially when they involve narrow light beams, it is crucial to understand how light propagates in our statistically homogeneous, clumpy, Universe. Among the various approaches to tackle this issue, Swiss-cheese models propose an inhomogeneous spacetime geometry which is an exact solution of Einstein's equation, while the Dyer-Roeder approximation deals with inhomogeneity in an effective way. In this article, we demonstrate that the distance-redshift relation of a certain class of Swiss-cheese models is the same as the one pred…
We consider a Swiss Cheese model with a random arrangement of Lemaître--Tolman--Bondi holes in $Λ$CDM cheese. We study two kinds of holes with radius $r_b=50 h^{-1}$Mpc, with either an underdense or an overdense centre, called the open and closed case, respectively. We calculate the effect of the holes on the temperature, angular diameter distance and, for the first time in Swiss Cheese models, shear of the CMB. We quantify the systematic shift of the mean and the statistical scatter, and calculate the power spectra. In the open case, the temperature power spectrum is three orders of magnitude…
By considering the quantum Oppenheimer-Snyder model in loop quantum cosmology, a new quantum black hole model whose metric tensor is a suitably deformed Schwarzschild one is derived. The quantum effects imply a lower bound on the mass of the black hole produced by the collapsing dust ball. For the case of larger masses where the event horizon does form, the maximal extension of the spacetime and its properties are investigated. By discussing the opposite scenario to the quantum Oppenheimer-Snyder, a quantum Swiss Cheese model is obtained with a bubble surrounded by the quantum universe. This m…
We examine a novel class of toy models of cosmological inhomogeneities by smoothly matching along a suitable hypersurface an arbitrary number of sections of "quasi flat" inhomogeous and anisotropic Szekeres-II models to sections of any spatially flat cosmology that can be described by the Robertson-Waker metric (including de Sitter, anti de Sitter and Minkowski spacetimes). The resulting "pancake" models are quasi-flat analogues to the well known spherical "Swiss-cheese" models found in the literature. Since Szekeres-II models can be, in general, compatible with a wide range of sources (dissip…
In a recent work, it has been proposed that the recent cosmic passage to a cosmic acceleration era is the result of the existence of small anti-gravity sources in each galaxy and clusters of galaxies. In particular, a swiss-cheese cosmology model which relativistically integrates the contribution of all these anti-gravity sources on galactic scale has been constructed assuming the presence of an infrared fixed point for a scale dependent cosmological constant. The derived cosmological expansion provides explanation for both the fine tuning and the coincidence problem. The present work relaxes …
A convincing explanation for the nature of the dark energy and dark matter is still missing. In recent works a RG-improved swiss-cheese cosmology with an evolving cosmological constant dependent on the \sch radius has been proven to be a promising model to explain the observed cosmic acceleration. In this work we extend this model to consider the combined scaling of the Newton constant $G$ and the cosmological constant $Λ$ according to the IR-fixed point hypothesis. We shall show that our model easily generates the observed recent passage from deceleration to acceleration without need of extra…
Light propagation in two Swiss cheese models based on anisotropic Szekeres structures is studied and compared with light propagation in Swiss cheese models based on the Szekeres models' underlying LTB models. The study shows that the anisotropy of the Szekeres models has only a small effect on quantities such as redshift-distance relations, projected shear and expansion rate along individual light rays. \newline\indent The average angular diameter distance to the last scattering surface is computed for each model. Contrary to earlier studies, the results obtained here are (mostly) in agreement…
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 described by the Szekeres metric. The Szekeres exact solution of Einstein's equations, which is inhomogeneous and anisotropic, allows us to capture potentially relevant effects on light propagation due to nontrivial evolution of structures in an exact framework. Light beams traversing a single Szekeres structure in different ways can experience either magnifica…
We propose the natural inflation from the heterotic string theory on "Swiss-Cheese" Calabi-Yau manifold with multiple $U(1)$ magnetic fluxes. Such multiple $U(1)$ magnetic fluxes stabilize the same number of the linear combination of the universal axion and Kähler axions and one of the Kähler axions is identified as the inflaton. This axion decay constant can be determined by the size of one-loop corrections to the gauge kinetic function of the hidden gauge groups, which leads effectively to the trans-Planckian axion decay constant consistent with the WMAP, Planck and/or BICEP2 data. During th…
We revisit the question of whether the cosmological constant $Λ$ affects the cosmological gravitational bending of light, by numerical integration of the geodesic equations for a Swiss cheese model consisting of a point mass and a compensated vacuole, in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker background. We find that there is virtually no dependence of the light bending on the cosmological constant that is not already accounted for in the angular diameter distances of the standard lensing equations, plus small modifications that arise because the bending is restricted to a finite region covered by the h…
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 formalism to deal with small-scale lensing as a diffusion process: the Sachs and Jacobi equations governing the propagation of narrow light beams are treated as Langevin equations. We derive the associated Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov equations, and use them to deduce general analytical results on the mean and dispersion of the angular distance. This formalism is …
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 cases is defined via light propagation, can differ from the homogeneous case. Simple models can take this into account. I review the history of this idea, its generalization to a wide variety of cosmological models, analytic solutions of simple models, comparison of such solutions with exact solutions and numerical simulations, applications, simpler analytic…
