Observational Cosmology in Macroscopic Gravity
  We discuss the construction of cosmological models within the framework of
Macroscopic Gravity (MG), which is a theory that models the effects of
averaging the geometry of space-time on large scales. We find new exact
spatially homogeneous and isotropic FLRW solutions to the MG field equations,
and investigate large-scale perturbations around them. We find that any
inhomogeneous perturbations to the averaged geometry are severely restricted,
but that possible anisotropies in the correlation tensor can have dramatic
consequences for the measurement of distances. These calculations are a first
step within the MG approach toward developing averaged cosmological models to a
point where they can be used to interpret real cosmological data, and hence to
provide a working alternative to the "concordance" LCDM model.
