Speaker
Description
In the current era of precision cosmology, the $\Lambda$CDM model, despite its stunning successes, appears insufficient to represent our actual Universe. Owing to the tensions occuring between theory and observations, it appears that a more precise representation of the local universe is mandatory. Since General Relativity (GR) is the best theory currently available to describe gravitation (verified up to some $10^{-15}$ precision in the weak and strong regimes), the new model should agree with its specifications. The Szekeres GR solution possesses all the nice properties allowing it to represent an inhomogeneous small scale universe becoming homogeneous (FLRW) at some large transition scale. Moreover, a number of observations, which will be described here, imply that the distribution of matter and its expansion are anisotropic roughly in the direction of the CMB dipole. Since the use of the general Szekeres model can seem tricky, due to its large degeneracy, its axially symmetric version might be more appealing. Therefore, taking advantage of both its compatibility with observations and its relative simplicity, we show how it can be used as a valuable cosmological model.