Dark energy model with very large-scale inhomogeneity

Abstract

We consider a dynamical model for dark energy based on an ultralight mass scalar field with very large-scale inhomogeneities. This model may cause observable impacts on the anisotropic properties of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) intensity and luminosity distance. We formulate the model as the cosmological perturbations of the superhorizon scales, focusing on the local region of our universe. Moreover, we investigated the characteristic properties of the late-time evolution of inhomogeneous dark energy. Our numerical solutions show that the model can mimic the standard $\Lambda$CDM cosmology while including spatially dependent dark energy with flexible ranges of the model parameters. We put a constraint on the amplitude of these inhomogeneities of the dark energy on very large scales with the observations of the CMB anisotropies. We also discuss their influence on the estimation of the luminosity distance.