Testing the local-void alternative to dark energy using galaxy pairs

Abstract

The possibility that we live in a special place in the universe, close to the center of a large, radially inhomogeneous void, has attracted attention recently as an alternative to dark energy or modified gravity to explain the accelerating universe. We show that the distribution of orientations of galaxy pairs can be used to test the Copernican principle that we are not in a central or special region of Universe. The popular void models can not fit both the latest type Ia supernova, cosmic microwave background data and the distribution of orientations of galaxy pairs simultaneously. Our results rule out the void models at the $4\sigma$ confidence level as the origin of cosmic acceleration and favor the Copernican principle.

5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• The intrinsic bispectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background [PhD thesis]
• Searching for a preferred direction with Union2.1 data
• Revealing the late-time transition of $H_0$: relieve the Hubble crisis
• Physical geometry of the quasispherical Szekeres models