Undermining the cosmological principle: Almost isotropic observations in inhomogeneous cosmologies (Q2704072)

The physical, geometrical and observational characteristics are studied of a two parameter family of inhomogeneous perfect fluid models concerning the cosmic microwave background. The models are a subclass of the models admitting isotropic radiation fields. The models do not suffer from particle horizons. The work represents the first exact analysis of the observational properties of an inhomogeneous cosmological model for all observer positions. As a result, the standard assumption that the observed high degree of isotropy about us combined with the Copernican principle necessarily forces the universe to be homogeneous is seriously undermined.