Testing the Copernican principle by constraining spatial homogeneity

Abstract

We present a new programme for placing constraints on radial inhomogeneity in a dark-energy dominated universe. We introduce a new measure to quantify violations of the Copernican principle. Any violation of this principle would interfere with our interpretation of any dark-energy evolution. In particular, we find that current observations place reasonably tight constraints on possible late-time violations of the Copernican principle: the allowed area in the parameter space of amplitude and scale of a spherical inhomogeneity around the observer has to be reduced by a factor of three so as to confirm the Copernican principle. Then, by marginalizing over possible radial inhomogeneity we provide the first constraints on the cosmological constant which are free of the homogeneity prior prevalent in cosmology.