Title: Probing homogeneity with standard candles,
Abstract: We show that standard candles can provide some valuable information about the
density contrast, which could be particularly important at redshifts where
other observations are not available. We use an inversion method to reconstruct
the local radial density profile from luminosity distance observations assuming
background cosmological parameters obtained from large scale observations.
Using type Ia Supernovae% (SNe) , Cepheids and the cosmological parameters from
the Planck mission we reconstruct the radial density profiles along two
different directions of the sky. We compare these profiles to other density
maps obtained from luminosity density, in particular Keenan et al. 2013 and the
2M++ galaxy catalogue. The method independently confirms the existence of
inhomogeneities, could be particularly useful to correctly normalize density
maps from galaxy surveys with respect to the average density of the Universe,
and could clarify the apparent discrepancy between local and large scale
estimations of the Hubble constant. When better observational supernovae data
will be available, the accuracy of the reconstructed density profiles will
improve and will allow to further investigate the existence of structures whose
size is beyond the reach of galaxy surveys.