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Title: Do large-scale inhomogeneities explain away dark energy?

Journal Article · · Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
; ;  [1]
  1. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706 (United States)

Recently, new arguments [E. Barausse, S. Matarrese, and A. Riotto, Phys. Rev. D 71, 063537 (2005).][E. W. Kolb, S. Matarrese, A. Notari, and A. Riotto, hep-th/0503117 [Phys. Rev. Lett. (to be published)].] for how corrections from super-Hubble modes can explain the present-day acceleration of the universe have appeared in the literature. However, in this paper, we argue that, to second order in spatial gradients, these corrections only amount to a renormalization of local spatial curvature, and thus cannot account for the negative deceleration. Moreover, cosmological observations already put severe bounds on such corrections, at the level of a few percent, while in the context of inflationary models, these corrections are typically limited to {approx}10{sup -5}. Currently there is no general constraint on the possible correction from higher order gradient terms, but we argue that such corrections are even more constrained in the context of inflationary models.

OSTI ID:
20711120
Journal Information:
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 72, Issue 2; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.72.023517; (c) 2005 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English