Abstract
The Copernican principle, a cornerstone of modern cosmology, remains largely unproven at the Gpc radial scale and above. Here will show that violations of this type will inevitably cause a first order anisotropic kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect. If large scale radial inhomogeneities have an amplitude large enough to explain the “dark energy” phenomena, the induced kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich power spectrum will be much larger than the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and/or South Pole Telescope upper limit. This single test confirms the Copernican principle and rules out the adiabatic void model as a viable alternative to dark energy.
- Received 19 September 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.041301
© 2011 American Physical Society
Synopsis
No privilege for earthly observers
Published 21 July 2011
The idea that the observed expansion of the universe is related to our unique vantage point—as opposed to dark energy—seems to be inconsistent with telescope data.
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