The universe ringing like a bell? What would that mean for the cosmological constant? The claim that the rate of expansion accelerates and decelerates periodically over time is here and that it has already gone through seven such cycles, each being damped further with each oscillation. What would it mean for the cosmological constant and dark energy - what could cause such oscillations on such a scale?
 A: Mead and Ringermacher's paper is available on the Arxiv here. Their previous publication that descibes how they perform their analysis is also on the Arxiv here.
Mead and Ringermacher's paper is phenomenological, i.e. it reports an analysis of experimental data (measurements of SN1a red shifts) and the paper suggests a scalar field that could be responsible for the effect. However no attempt is made to link the scalar field to any fundamental theory of physics.
So if I have correctly interpreted Dirk's question as asking what could be the fundamental physics behind the effect then that question has no answer. Any suggestions would be complete speculation. Mead and Ringermacher suggest that the scalar field behaves like dark matter, but it isn't clear whether a dark matter oscillation causes the the field or whether the field causes the apparant presence of dark matter. Again, any comments would just be speculation. Note that the scalar field is unrelated to dark energy and/or the cosmological constant.
I don't know enough about the area to comment on the validity of the analysis and whether the oscillations really exist. Presumably the cosmology community will be examining the work in the next few months and hopefuly some consensus will arise.
