TITLE:
A Possible Alternative to the Accelerating Universe IV
AUTHORS:
Frank R. Tangherlini
KEYWORDS:
Dark Energy, Speed of Light, Expansion Comparisons, Discordant Redshifts
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Modern Physics,
Vol.8 No.4,
March
31,
2017
ABSTRACT: This work briefly reviews and extends the author’s three previous works (2015), Journal of Modern Physics, 6, 78-87, and 1360-1370; (2016), 7, 1829-1844 that propose as an alternative to the accelerating ΛCDM universe, the decelerating Einstein de Sitter (EdS) universe, in which dark energy is a different phase of dark matter located only in intergalactic space (IGS), and that instead of a negative pressure, it has an index of refraction n≈1.50, and hence a reduced speed of light c / n through it. This allows the EdS universe to expand the extra distance necessary to obtain the diminished brightness of the Type Ia supernovae. In view of the recent suggestion that the universe is not accelerating, but possibly expanding uniformly, a table is given comparing both the accelerating and uniformly expanding universes with the EdS universe supplemented by the reduced speed of light. It is shown that fitting the uniformly expanding universe leads to a smaller value of n, and hence too short an age for the EdS universe, unlike the case with fitting the accelerating universe. The main result is that the proposed reduced speed of light in the IGS predicts discordant redshifts. It is shown that the current explanation of “accidental superposition,” is most likely insufficient to explain the number of observations, and that the present proposal could make up the difference. It can be tested astronomically, as illustrated in a figure.