Dark Energy as Residual Pressure Gradient Drift

The ΛCDM model provides the quantitative description of late-universe acceleration;
this paper does not challenge its results within their domain of validity. Instead, it
develops the geometric substrate from which dark energy emerges in the Cohesion Unified
Field Theory. Late-universe acceleration arises from residual pressure gradient drift: as
structural density decreases over cosmic time, the dimensionless ratio Ps+1/(ρsR(Dst))
rises above unity and the inherited pressure from the next higher scale produces a slow,
persistent outward recursion expansion. The cosmological constant Λ is identified as the
GR projection of this inherited pressure in the low-density limit — not vacuum energy
and not a constant of nature — pending formal derivation from the Cohesion UFT
field equations. A strong falsifiable prediction follows from the asymptote theorem [2]:
because R(Dst) → R0 = f(Ps+1) > 0 as density approaches zero, the expansion rate is
bounded above and the Big Rip is geometrically excluded. Acceleration asymptotically
approaches a limit. This is the first geometric, mechanical, and scale-consistent account
of dark energy within the Cohesion UFT framework.