Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-5-2013

Publication Title

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology

Department

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

The spectral distortion of the cosmic microwave background blackbody spectrum in a radially inhomogeneous space-time, designed to exactly reproduce a ΛCDM expansion history along the past light cone, is shown to exceed the upper bound established by COBE-FIRAS by a factor of approximately 3700. This simple observational test helps uncover a slew of pathological features that lie hidden inside the past light cone, including a radially contracting phase at decoupling and, if followed to its logical extreme, a naked singularity at the radially inhomogeneous big bang.

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevD.88.103502

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