Reconciling a decelerating Universe with cosmological observations

TL;DR

This paper explores whether a decelerating, general-relativistic universe can explain supernova dimming without dark energy, challenging common assumptions and providing new theoretical insights.

Contribution

It develops theorems that clarify conditions for supernova dimming, suggesting a decelerating universe could match observations without dark energy.

Findings

Theorems outlining conditions for supernova dimming

Decelerating universe models can potentially explain observations

Challenges the necessity of dark energy in cosmology

Abstract

Can modern cosmological observations be reconciled with a general-relativistic Universe without an anti-gravitating energy source? Usually, the answer to this question by cosmologists is in the negative, and it is commonly believed that the observed excess dimming of supernovae relative to that in the Milne model is evidence for dark energy. In this paper, we develop theorems that clarify the conditions for such an excess dimming, based on which we argue that the answer to the above question may counter-intuitively be `yes'.