Emergent Expansion Research (E²R)

👋 Who I Am

I’m Eric Petersen, an independent Canadian researcher exploring new answers to one of the biggest mysteries in science: why is the universe expanding?

Most cosmological explanations rely on invisible forces, dark matter, and dark energy, to fill in the gaps. My work asks a different question: what if expansion, structure, and the so-called “dark sector” aren’t mysteries at all, but natural, geometric outcomes of mass in motion?

🌀 What I’m Working On

Imagine the universe not as an infinite expanse born from a wild explosion, but as a finite, contained realm that began in calm balance. In this picture, all the matter that will ever exist was there from the start, quietly spread out. As time goes on, gravity pulls matter together into stars, galaxies, and especially black holes. Here’s the twist: when matter clumps in one area, space itself stretches out elsewhere to compensate. From any given point in the cosmos, that stretching makes it look like everything is rushing away - the familiar expansion of the universe - but not because of a mysterious new push. Rather, it’s the geometry of space responding to where the mass is going.

This idea is part of my cosmological theory of how expansion works. It reframes two big cosmic mysteries, dark matter and dark energy, not as strange ingredients but as two sides of the same cosmic fabric. Dense pockets of matter “knot up” spacetime (behaving like hidden mass that helps hold galaxies together), while the surrounding space gently expands (the effect we’ve called dark energy). Crucially, the accelerating expansion of the universe isn’t driven by any extra force or fluid, it’s a natural reaction. As I wrote in my most recent layperson explainer, the smooth fabric of spacetime simply stretches in response to the knots of matter forming within it. In other words, the universe doesn’t need to inject new energy to push galaxies apart; it just redistributes the energy that’s already there, like an cosmic accounting system keeping balance.

This self-balancing mechanism can help explain puzzling observations. Take the Hubble tension, the fact that the universe’s expansion rate measured in our local neighborhood is higher than the rate inferred from the early universe. This theory naturally expects that difference: as the universe developed structures, the expansion around those structures sped up slightly, so nearby expansion looks a bit faster than it was long ago. That built-in variation could resolve the Hubble tension, which has challenged the standard ΛCDM model. It also demystifies the “coincidence” of cosmic acceleration seemingly switching on a few billion years ago. In my view, that’s exactly when enough matter had collapsed into big clusters and black holes to make space stretch noticeably faster, no spooky timing or extra energy required. The accelerating universe becomes a consequence of matter’s cosmic dance, not an unexplained new player.

All of these insights come together in my two frameworks, which formalize this new perspective. The first is Mass Redistribution Expansion Theory (MRET), now in version 4.2, which lays out the big picture: the universe expands because mass moves and reallocates, unifying dark matter and dark energy into one self-regulating system. The second is Horizon-Coupled Cosmology (HCC), a companion approach that digs into the details of how this process works in practice. HCC shows how energy can shift from matter into the smooth “background” at the edges of the observable universe, for example, when matter falls toward a black hole’s horizon, without breaking any of Einstein’s laws. In recent papers, I've used HCC to explore the behavior of matter at black hole horizons and how those extreme environments are tied to cosmic expansion. Together, MRET and HCC provide an elegant, testable picture of an expanding universe that needs no dark energy ghost: space grows by itself in response to the way mass is distributed.

✨ What’s New in v4.2

This version sharpens the “cosmic ledger” into a clean, one-dial formulation with firm guardrails, so the effect is active only when structure growth is relevant and otherwise fades into the background. The companion Explainer makes the three-act story, Quiet Beginning → Activation → Quiet Return, accessible to non-specialists, and the paper highlights concrete, near-term checks: a subtle supernova residual bump at mid-distances, a small present-day H₀ nudge, and distinctive lensing patterns around cosmic voids. Fewer moving parts, clearer predictions, same goal: explaining acceleration without invoking an exotic fluid. 

📈 Why It Matters

If correct, this line of work challenges the assumption that acceleration is universal and constant, offers natural ways to address tensions like H₀ and early massive galaxies, and stays within the familiar language of General Relativity. In short, it tries to replace “mystery” with geometry, keeping the math honest and the claims testable. 

🧭 What’s Next

I’m tuning parameters and forecasts to meet the oncoming data wave from DESI, JWST, and other surveys, with special attention to void lensing, supernova residuals, and H₀-adjacent signals. The aim is simple: put the idea in front of the best data and see if the sky agrees. 

All work is open-access and published through my Zenodo archive, and I welcome engagement from researchers, skeptics, and curious explorers alike.

If you’re looking for a fresh way to understand why the universe expands, and how geometry, gravity, and information may be part of the same equation, E²R is your invitation to look again.