Description of Supernova Data in Conformal Cosmology without Cosmological Constant

TL;DR

This paper explores a conformal invariant cosmological model replacing universe expansion with mass evolution, successfully fitting supernova Ia data without a cosmological constant and predicting deviations at high redshift.

Contribution

It introduces a conformal invariant formulation of Einstein's gravity with a scalar field, providing an alternative explanation for supernova data without dark energy.

Findings

Fits supernova Ia data without cosmological constant

Predicts deviations from standard cosmology at z > 1.7

Proposes mass evolution as an alternative to universe expansion

Abstract

We consider cosmological consequences of a conformal invariant formulation of Einstein's General Relativity where instead of the scale factor of the spatial metrics in the action functional a massless scalar (dilaton) field occurs which scales all masses including the Planck mass. Instead of the expansion of the universe we get the Hoyle-Narlikar type of mass evolution, where the temperature history of the universe is replaced by the mass history. We show that this conformal invariant cosmological model gives a satisfactory description of the new supernova Ia data for the effective magnitude - redshift relation without a cosmological constant and make a prediction for the high-redshift behavior which deviates from that of standard cosmology for $z>1.7$.