Aspects of the Inhomogeneous Universe at Low Redshift
by
Ido Ben-Dayan(DESY)
→
Europe/Berlin
DESY Hamburg
DESY Hamburg
Description
Our Universe is homogeneous and isotropic only in an averaged sense. General Relativity (GR) is a non-linear theory and therefore it is important to properly define averages in GR both for theoretical and phenomenological reasons.
I will start by describing the "light-cone averaging prescription", followed by some formal results for the theoretically inclined audience. Then I will discuss the effect of small scale inhomogeneities on the luminosity distance - redshift relation within LCDM, the standard model of cosmology. I will then focus on two results of such analysis:
1) The effect of inhomogeneities on the Hubble parameter H_0 and the observed cosmological constant \Omega_{\Lambda}.
2) Inhomogeneities as a probe of the primordial power spectrum on small scales.
