Dark side of the universe in the Stephani cosmology

We investigate the late time acceleration of the universe in the context of the Stephani model. This solution generalizes those of Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) in such a way that the spatial curvature is a function of of time. We show that the inhomogeneity of the models can lead to an accelerated evolution of the universe that is analogous to that obtained with FLRW models through a cosmological constant or any exotic component for matter.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure, many improvements; to appear in European Physical Journal

Exact String-like Solutions of the Gauged Nonlinear O(3) Model

We show that the least energy conditions in the gauged nonlinear sigma model with Chern-Simons term lead to exact soliton-like solutions which have the same features as domain walls. We will derive and discuss the corresponding solutions, and compute the total energy, charge, and spin of the resulting system.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure