A massive gravitational field in flat spacetime. IV. The secular drift of atomic spectra and optics of type Ia supernovae

The cosmological application of the proposed early special-relativistic gauge-invariant theory of a massive gravitational field predicts the existence in the universe of a dynamical spatially uniform background gravitational field with a single non-zero time component, which dominates in Universe controlling its cyclic evolution through the balanced exchange of energy with gravitating matter. The previous and continuing increase in the rest energy of matter perfectly explains the cosmological redshift of atomic spectra without the hypothesis of a general recession of distant galaxies. The excellent numerical agreement of theory with the data from SNe Ia is achieved by fitting only two parameters: the age of the current cycle ($24$ Gyr) and the current value of the background scalar strength expressed through the Hubble constant ($68$ kms$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$). The predicted cosmological acceleration of the decay of unstable nuclei and particles is confirmed by $(1+z)$-stretching of the light curves of SNe Ia, the observed afterglow of which occurs owing to the high-energy gamma-ray photons released in the chain of beta decays ${}^{56}\mathrm{Ni}\to{}^{56}\mathrm{Co}\to{}^{56}\mathrm{Fe}$.