COSMIC ACCELERATION: INHOMOGENEITY VERSUS VACUUM ENERGY

Abstract

In this letter, we present an alternative explanation for the cosmic acceleration which appears as a consequence of recent high redshift supernova data. In the usual interpretation, this cosmic acceleration is explained by the presence of a positive cosmological constant or vacuum energy, in the background of Friedmann models. Instead, we shall consider a local rotational symmetric (LRS) inhomogeneous space–time, with a barotropic perfect fluid equation of state for the cosmic matter. Within this framework the kinematical acceleration of the cosmic fluid or, equivalently, the inhomogeneity of matter, is just the responsible of the SNe Ia measured cosmic acceleration. Although in our model the Cosmological Principle is relaxed, it maintains local isotropy about our worldline in agreement with CBR observations.