Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 469, Issue 2, Pages 1924-1931Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stx988
Keywords
methods: statistical; cosmology: theory; large-scale structure of universe
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) - Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning [2013R1A1A1011107]
- NRF
- NRF of Korea - Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning [2016R1A2B4007964]
- Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning [2015R1A2A2A01002791]
- National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST), Republic of Korea [2017186003] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
- National Research Foundation of Korea [2013R1A1A1011107, 22A20130000179, 2016R1A2B4007964, 2015R1A2A2A01002791] Funding Source: Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information (KISTI), National Science & Technology Information Service (NTIS)
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The homogeneity of matter distribution at large scales, known as the cosmological principle, is a central assumption in the standard cosmological model. The case is testable though, thus no longer needs to be a principle. Here we perform a test for spatial homogeneity using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Luminous Red Galaxies (LRG) sample by counting galaxies within a specified volume with the radius scale varying up to 300 h(-1) Mpc. We directly confront the large-scale structure data with the definition of spatial homogeneity by comparing the averages and dispersions of galaxy number counts with allowed ranges of the random distribution with homogeneity. The LRG sample shows significantly larger dispersions of number counts than the random catalogues up to 300 h(-1) Mpc scale, and even the average is located far outside the range allowed in the random distribution; the deviations are statistically impossible to be realized in the random distribution. This implies that the cosmological principle does not hold even at such large scales. The same analysis of mock galaxies derived from the N-body simulation, however, suggests that the LRG sample is consistent with the current paradigm of cosmology, thus the simulation is also not homogeneous in that scale. We conclude that the cosmological principle is neither in the observed sky nor demanded to be there by the standard cosmological world model. This reveals the nature of the cosmological principle adopted in the modern cosmology paradigm, and opens a new field of research in theoretical cosmology.
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