Multifractal analysis of packed Swiss cheese cosmologies (Q1424832)

According to the cosmological principle, the universe is a homogeneous and isotropic manifold. This stipulation forms the base of the Friedman-Robertson-Walker solutions of Einstein's field equations from which the expansion of the universe is derived [\textit{S. W. Hawking} and \textit{G. F. R. Ellis}, The large scale structure of space-time. Cambridge Monographs of Mathematical Physics. Vol. I. London: Cambridge University Press (1973; Zbl 0265.53054); \textit{C. W. Misner}, \textit{K. S. Thorne} and \textit{J. A. Wheeler}, Gravitation. W. H. Freeman and Co., San Francisco, Calif. (1973); \textit{I. E. Segal}, Mathematical cosmology and extragalactic astronomy. Pure and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 68. Academic Press, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, New York-London (1976); \textit{W. Rindler}, Fundam. Theor. Phys. 16, 39--58 (2002; Zbl 1040.83051)]. Locally, however, the universe is not a homogeneous manifold. Therefore the tendency in theoretical cosmology goes to consider locally inhomogeneous cosmological models that form globally homogeneous space-times which everywhere satisfy Einstein's field equations. The breakdown of homogeneity has been accepted by theoretical cosmologists by assuming the existence of fractally clustered matter [\textit{P. J. E. Peebles}, Principles of physical cosmology. Princeton Series in Physics. Princeton Paperbacks. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ (1993)]. Over the course of a decade, increasing evidence has been established to suggest that the dimensionality of a wide range of redshift survey catalogs yields clustering dimensions. Since each of such galactic catalogs is limited in size and volume, the associated dimensions can only be statistically viable. In the present paper the multifractal spectra of various three-dimensional cosmological models are compared with observational data and model simulations. The discrepancies are analyzed in order to provide some insight into the multifractal approach to the large-scale structure of the universe [\textit{J. R. Mureika}, Topics in multifractal analysis of two- and three-dimensional structures in spaces of constant curvature. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (2001)]. A different direction of cosmological research, basically also due to the ideas developed by Einstein in the 1940s, is the concept of lacunarity which provides an estimate of the voidness rather than clumpiness. Such an investigation of the large-scale structure of the universe is currently performed by the first author.