Big-Rip, Sudden Future, and other exotic singularities in the universe

We discuss exotic singularities in the evolution of the universe motivated by the progress of observations in cosmology. Among them there are: Big-Rip (BR), Sudden Future Singularities (SFS), Generalized Sudden Future Singularities (GSFS), Finite Density Singularities (FD), type III, and type IV singularities. We relate some of these singularities with higher-order characteristics of expansion such as jerk and snap. We also discuss the behaviour of pointlike objects and classical strings on the approach to these singularities.Comment: 3 pages, MG11 proceedings contributio

Redshift drift in varying speed of light cosmology

We derive a redshift drift formula within the framework of varying speed of light (VSL) theory using the specific ansatz for the variability of $c(t) = c_0 a^n(t)$. We show that negative values of the parameter $n$, which correspond to diminishing value of the speed of light during the evolution of the universe, effectively rescales dust matter to become little negative pressure matter, and the cosmological constant to became phantom. Positive values of $n$ (growing $c(t)$) make VSL model to become more like Cold Dark Matter (CDM) model. Observationally, there is a distinction between the VSL model and the $\Lambda$CDM model for the admissible values of the parameter $n \sim - 10^{-5}$, though it will be rather difficult to detect by planned extremely large telescopes (E-ELT, TMT, GMT) within their accuracy.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, title and body changed to match a published version on redshift drift onl

A critical assessment of some inhomogeneous pressure Stephani models

We consider spherically symmetric inhomogeneous pressure Stephani universes, the center of symmetry being our location. The main feature of these models is that comoving observers do not follow geodesics. In particular, comoving perfect fluids have necessarily a radially dependent pressure. We consider a subclass of these models characterized by some inhomogeneity parameter $\beta$. We show that also the velocity of sound, like the (effective) equation of state parameter, of comoving perfect fluids acquire away from the origin a time and radial dependent change proportional to $\beta$. In order to produce a realistic universe accelerating at late times without dark energy component one must take $\beta < 0$. The redshift gets a modified dependence on the scale factor $a(t)$ with a relative modification of $-9\%$ peaking at $z\sim 4$ and vanishing at the big-bang and today on our past lightcone. The equation of state parameter and the speed of sound of dustlike matter (corresponding to a vanishing pressure at the center of symmetry $r=0$) behave in a similar way and away from the center of symmetry they become negative -- a property usually encountered for the dark energy component only. In order to mimic the observed late-time accelerated expansion, the matter component must significantly depart from standard dust, presumably ruling this subclass of Stephani models out as a realistic cosmology. The only way to accept these models is to keep all standard matter components of the universe including dark energy and take an inhomogeneity parameter $\beta$ small enough.Comment: REVTEX4-1, 12 pages, 6 figures, explanatory material added, version to appear in PRD, conclusions and results unchange