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Ready-to-fit inhomogeneous cosmological model: The axially symmetric Szekeres spacetime
Phys. Rev. D 114, 023510 – Published 6 July, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/rttb-g97q
Abstract
The purpose of the present work is based on two main observations: the tensions encountered by the standard model when confronted to precision small scale cosmological data and the finding that the matter distribution is dipolar and the expansion of the Universe is axially symmetric roughly in the direction of the CMB dipole. Therefore, we propose, as a model for the inhomogeneous local universe, an axially symmetric Szekeres solution. After describing its main properties, we are left with three metric functions to be fitted to data between the observer and the transition to homogeneity which is an intrinsic feature of Szekeres spacetimes. So as to turn a difficult functional inference problem into a classical parameter estimation problem, we propose to use Chebyshev polynomial expansions, which, as a first step, we truncate after the second order terms. We are thus left with nine constant parameters: six for the metric functions, plus the observer’s location and the cosmological constant. Here are the proper ingredients needed to implement the data fitting to the model in the future.
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