# Einstein clusters as models of inhomogeneous spacetimes

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how small-scale inhomogeneities in Einstein clusters affect observations, showing that their impact remains minimal for a central observer and that simplified homogeneous models can effectively represent such inhomogeneous spacetimes.

## Contribution

It introduces a toy-model of inhomogeneous Einstein clusters and demonstrates that small-scale inhomogeneities have limited observational effects in this context.

## Key findings

- Small-scale inhomogeneities have minimal impact on observations for a central observer.
- Homogeneous models can effectively approximate inhomogeneous Einstein clusters.
- The model provides a basic framework for studying inhomogeneity effects in general relativity.

## Abstract

We study the effect of small-scale inhomogeneities for Einstein clusters. We construct a spherically symmetric stationary spacetime with small-scale radial inhomogeneities and propose the Gedankenexperiment. An hypothetical observer at the center constructs, using limited observational knowledge, a simplified homogeneous model of the configuration. An idealization introduces side effects. The inhomogeneous spacetime and the effective homogeneous spacetime are given by simple solutions to Einstein equations. They provide a basic toy-model for studies of the effect of small-scale inhomogeneities in general relativity. We show that within our highly inhomogeneous model the effect of small-scale inhomogeneities remains small for a central observer. The homogeneous model fits very well to all hypothetical observations as long as their precision is not high enough to reveal a tension.