0000000000042584
AUTHOR
Valerio Marra
showing 13 related works from this author
SNe observations in a meatball universe with a local void
2009
We study the impact of cosmic inhomogeneities on the interpretation of observations. We build an inhomogeneous universe model without dark energy that can confront supernova data and yet is reasonably well compatible with the Copernican Principle. Our model combines a relatively small local void, that gives apparent acceleration at low redshifts, with a meatball model that gives sizeable lensing (dimming) at high redshifts. Together these two elements, which focus on different effects of voids on the data, allow the model to mimic the concordance model.
Accurate modeling of weak lensing with the stochastic gravitational lensing method
2011
We revise and extend the stochastic gravitational lensing method (the sGL method) first introduced by Kainulainen and Marra [Phys. Rev. D 80, 123020 (2009)]. Here we include a realistic halo-mass function and density profiles to model the distribution of mass between and within galaxies, galaxy groups, and galaxy clusters. We also introduce a modeling of the filamentary large-scale structures and a method to embed halos into these structures. We show that the sGL method naturally reproduces the weak lensing results for the Millennium simulation. The strength of the sGL method is that a numerical code based on it can compute the lensing probability distribution function (PDF) for a given inh…
Impact of cosmic inhomogeneities on SNe observations
2009
We study the impact of cosmic inhomogeneities on the interpretation of SNe observations. We build an inhomogeneous universe model that can confront supernova data and yet is reasonably well compatible with the Copernican Principle. Our model combines a relatively small local void, that gives apparent acceleration at low redshifts, with a meatball model that gives sizeable lensing (dimming) at high redshifts. Together these two elements, which focus on different effects of voids on the data, allow the model to mimic the concordance model.
Large-scale inhomogeneities may improve the cosmic concordance of supernovae
2010
We reanalyze the supernovae data from the Union Compilation including the weak lensing effects caused by inhomogeneities. We compute the lensing probability distribution function for each background solution described by the parameters Omega_M, Omega_L and w in the presence of inhomogeneities, approximately modeled with a single-mass population of halos. We then perform a likelihood analysis in the space of FLRW-parameters and compare our results with the standard approach. We find that the inclusion of lensing can move the best-fit model significantly towards the cosmic concordance of the flat LCDM model, improving the agreement with the constraints coming from the cosmic microwave backgro…
Cosmological background solutions and cosmological backreactions
2009
The cosmological backreaction proposal, which attempts to account for observations without a primary dark energy source in the stress-energy tensor, has been developed and discussed by means of different approaches. Here, we focus on the concept of cosmological background solutions in order to develop a framework to study different backreaction proposals.
Uncertainty on w from large-scale structure
2012
We find that if we live at the center of an inhomogeneity with total density contrast of roughly 0.1, dark energy is not a cosmological constant at 95% confidence level. Observational constraints on the equation of state of dark energy, w, depend strongly on the local matter density around the observer. We model the local inhomogeneity with an exact spherically symmetric solution which features a pressureless matter component and a dark-energy fluid with constant equation of state and negligible sound speed, that reaches a homogeneous solution at finite radius. We fit this model to observations of the local expansion rate, distant supernovae and the cosmic microwave background. We conclude …
Observational constraints on inhomogeneous cosmological models without dark energy
2011
It has been proposed that the observed dark energy can be explained away by the effect of large-scale nonlinear inhomogeneities. In the present paper we discuss how observations constrain cosmological models featuring large voids. We start by considering Copernican models, in which the observer is not occupying a special position and homogeneity is preserved on a very large scale. We show how these models, at least in their current realizations, are constrained to give small, but perhaps not negligible in certain contexts, corrections to the cosmological observables. We then examine non-Copernican models, in which the observer is close to the center of a very large void. These models can gi…
Exact spherically-symmetric inhomogeneous model withnperfect fluids
2011
We present the exact equations governing the dynamics of a spherically-symmetric inhomogeneous model with n decoupled and non-comoving perfect fluids. Thanks to the use of physically meaningful quantities we write the set of 3+2n equations in a concise and transparent way. The n perfect fluids can have general equations of state, thus making the model extremely flexible to study a large variety of cosmological and astrophysical problems. As applications we consider a model sourced by two non-comoving dust components and a cosmological constant, and a model featuring dust and a dark energy component with negligible speed of sound.
Weak Lensing Observables in the Halo Model
2011
The halo model (HM) describes the inhomogeneous universe as a collection of halos. The full nonlinear power spectrum of the universe is well approximated by the HM, whose prediction can be easily computed without lengthy numerical simulations. This makes the HM a useful tool in cosmology. Here we explore the lensing properties of the HM by use of the stochastic gravitational lensing (sGL) method. We obtain for the case of point sources exact and simple integral expressions for the expected value and variance of the lensing convergence, which encode detailed information about the internal halo properties. In particular a wide array of observational biases can be easily incorporated and the d…
Observational constraints on the LLTB model
2010
We directly compare the concordance LCDM model to the inhomogeneous matter-only alternative represented by LTB void models. To achieve a "democratic" confrontation we explore LLTB models with non-vanishing cosmological constant and perform a global likelihood analysis in the parameter space of cosmological constant and void radius. In our analysis we carefully consider SNe, Hubble constant, CMB and BAO measurements, marginalizing over spectral index, age of the universe and background curvature. We find that the LCDM model is not the only possibility compatible with the observations, and that a matter-only void model is a viable alternative to the concordance model only if the BAO constrain…
A new stochastic approach to cumulative weak lensing
2009
We study the weak gravitational lensing effects caused by a stochastic distribution of dark matter halos. We develop a simple approach to calculate the magnification probability distribution function which allows us to easily compute the magnitude bias and dispersion for an arbitrary data sample and a given universe model. As an application we consider the effects of single-mass large-scale cosmic inhomogeneities to the SNe magnitude-redshift relation, and conclude that such structures could bias the PDF enough to affect the extraction of cosmological parameters from the limited size of present-day SNe data samples. We also release turboGL, a simple and very fast (<= 1s) Mathematica code…
The miniJPAS survey: a preview of the Universe in 56 colours
2021
Full list of authors: Bonoli, S.; Marín-Franch, A.; Varela, J.; Vázquez Ramió, H.; Abramo, L. R.; Cenarro, A. J.; Dupke, R. A.; Vílchez, J. M.; Cristóbal-Hornillos, D.; González Delgado, R. M.; Hernández-Monteagudo, C.; López-Sanjuan, C.; Muniesa, D. J.; Civera, T.; Ederoclite, A.; Hernán-Caballero, A.; Marra, V.; Baqui, P. O.; Cortesi, A.; Cypriano, E. S.; Daflon, S.; de Amorim, A. L.; Díaz-García, L. A.; Diego, J. M.; Martínez-Solaeche, G.; Pérez, E.; Placco, V. M.; Prada, F.; Queiroz, C.; Alcaniz, J.; Alvarez-Candal, A.; Cepa, J.; Maroto, A. L.; Roig, F.; Siffert, B. B.; Taylor, K.; Benitez, N.; Moles, M.; Sodré, L.; Carneiro, S.; Mendes de Oliveira, C.; Abdalla, E.; Angulo, R. E.; Apari…
Accurate Modeling of Weak Lensing with the sGL Method
2010
We revise and extend the stochastic approach to cumulative weak lensing (hereafter the sGL method) first introduced in Ref. [1]. Here we include a realistic halo mass function and density profiles to model the distribution of mass between and within galaxies, galaxy groups and galaxy clusters. We also introduce a modeling of the filamentary large-scale structures and a method to embed halos into these structures. We show that the sGL method naturally reproduces the weak lensing results for the Millennium Simulation. The strength of the sGL method is that a numerical code based on it can compute the lensing probability distribution function for a given inhomogeneous model universe in a few s…