Discoveries at High Redshifts: Strong Evidence for Consecutive Expansion Epochs of the Universe that Preceded the Current Epoch of Cosmic Expansion

The comparison of the redshift-distance relationship for high and low-redshift supernovae revealed the surprising transition of the Universe’s expansion from past deceleration to recent acceleration. As compared to local supernovae, remote supernovae appear 10% to 25% dimmer as they are further away than expected indicating that the Universe is accelerating (expanding at a faster rate) now at low redshifts and was decelerating (expanding at a slower rate) in the past at high redshifts. Since observed redshifts (z) in an expanding Universe also provide an estimate of recession velocities (the more shifted a spectral line is towards the red end of the spectrum (redshift), the faster that object is said to be receding from us), therefore, it is very disturbing (conflicting) to find that low recession velocities (z = 0.01) indicate a faster rate of expansion (acceleration or “speeding up”), whereas high recession velocities (z > 1) indicate a slower rate of expansion (deceleration or “slowing down”). Based on pure Hubble flow interpretation (recession velocities arising solely due to the expansion of the Universe), I unravel an undiscovered aspect of inhomogeneous expansion that perfectly mimics cosmic acceleration; I provide the first-ever conclusive evidence in this paper by showing that a purely kinematic interpretation of type Ia supernova sample provides strong evidence for “consecutive expansion epochs of the Universe that preceded the current epoch of cosmic expansion”, rather than “cosmic deceleration that preceded the current epoch of cosmic acceleration” (Riess et al. 2004). As a result of consecutive expansion, expansion began for remote objects in the preceding epochs of cosmic expansion before it did for local objects in the current (or more recent) epoch of cosmic expansion; remote supernovae, quasars, and gamma-ray bursts are therefore not only further away than expected, but they also happen to yield a slower rate of expansion, thereby suggesting their deceleration or “slowing down” even with “high recession velocities”. As a result of consecutive expansion, preceding epochs of cosmic expansion “appear to be decelerating or slowing down” as compared to the epoch of cosmic expansion that succeeds them – a natural feature of consecutive expansion. The analysis is based on the redshift-distance relationship plotted for 580 type Ia supernovae from the Supernova Cosmology Project, 7 additional high-redshift type Ia supernovae discovered through the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope from the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey Treasury program, and 1 additional very high-redshift type Ia supernova discovered with Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 on the Hubble Space Telescope. The results obtained by the High-z Supernova Search Team through observations of type Ia supernovae have also been analysed. Studies incorporating quasars and gamma-ray bursts to determine how the expansion of the Universe has changed over time have been taken into consideration as well. The results obtained in this paper have been confirmed by plotting velocity-distance relationship, expansion rate vs. time relationship, expansion factor vs. time relationship, scale factor vs. time relationship, scale factor vs. distance relationship, distance-redshift relationship, distance modulus vs. redshift relationship, Hubble residuals, and magnitude-redshift relationship, moreover, the deceleration parameter (q₀) is also found to be negative (q₀ < 0). The natural consequence of the type of expansion unravelled in this paper also makes it possible to help solve (i) the “Hubble tension”, (ii) an additional perplexing problem that makes the Universe appear to us as if it is “not only expanding faster than before but is also younger than before”, and, (iii) the “impossible early galaxy problem”.