The universe is accelerating today, when dark energy is the dominant contribution to the cosmic energy budget, and IT decelerated at earlier times when matter was the dominant fluid. The…

The Regents of the University of Colorado, doing business as the University of Colorado Office of Contracts and Grants Division, was awarded a $435,072 grant from the Shared Services Center of NASA to conduct research on directly measuring the cosmic acceleration of the universe through precise redshift monitoring. This research aims to provide an alternative approach to studying the acceleration of the universe's expansion, which has previously been inferred from observations of "standard rulers" and "standard candles." The award does not have a set-aside designation. As a U.S. state government entity and accredited public research university, the University of Colorado has extensive experience conducting fundamental research across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines under various federal agency grants and contracts, including with NASA, the Department of Defense, and NOAA.

The universe is accelerating today, when dark energy is the dominant contribution to the cosmic energy budget, and IT decelerated at earlier times when matter was the dominant fluid. The acceleration itself is inferred from observations of "standard rulers" and "standard candles" that rely on careful calibration, models, and the cosmic distance ladder. There has also been recent tension in the value of the hubble constant between local observations and those that rely on the cosmic microwave background, which suggests either underestimation of systematic errors or new physics that alter the acceleration history of the universe. This proposal suggests a third way to approach cosmology: to measure the universe's dynamic nature in real time. In this case, we propose to explore the viability of directly measuring the cosmic acceleration by precisely monitoring redshifts over time. In a dynamic universe, redshifts will exhibit a secular drift that may be positive (acceleration) or negative (deceleration). Objects at redshifts around z 1 should show maximum acceleration, and objects at z > 2.5 should show deceleration. This technique sidesteps the cosmic distance ladder and does not rely on standard rulers or candles.