What Moves the Heavens Above?

Understand

The standard cosmological model ($\Lambda CDM$) assumes that everything started in a singular Big Bang out of Cosmic Inflation, a mysterious form of modern Aether (the inflaton).

• Here we look for direct observational evidence for such beginning in two recent measurements: 1) cosmic acceleration, something $\Lambda CDM$ attributes to Dark Energy (DE), 2) discordant measurements for $H_0$ and anomalies in the CMB.
• We find here that observed variations in $H_0$ correspond to large metric perturbations that are not consistent with the simplest models of Inflation or DE in the $\Lambda CDM$ paradigm.
• Together, these observations indicate instead that cosmic expansion could originate from a simple gravitational collapse and bounce.