I was looking at this question on SE and the answers seemed to say that the reason why matter doesn't expand along with space is because of forces like gravity, electromagnetism, etc. However, i feel like this has to mean the fields themselves don't "expand" along with space.
Let me explain...
From my understanding, the expansion of space is about the expansion of space itself, not about distances within space changing. For example it's about the space taken up by one meter increasing, not about the distance between entities increasing from one meter to two. If these assumptions are off please let me know.
Keeping that in mind, look at redshifted light for example- This happens when the distance between crests of the light wave increases, changing the light's frequency. However, if space expansion doesn't increase distances within space, there should be no change of frequency, because there is no change in distance between crests. We do however see that the frequency does change with metric expansion. The only way i can think of to resolve this issue is to say that the expansion of space itself affects the wave. The only way for the expansion of space to affect the wave, is for the wave's field to not expand with space. The EM field "density" has to stay constant relative to the density of space (sorry for all the informal wording).
Or in the case of gravity- if space expands, the distance (and therefore gravitational influence) between objects should remain unchanged. However, for gravity to keep mass from expanding along with the expansion of space, it would have to exert a force that isn't proportional to changes in space density. The behavior of gravity (relative to the distances that determine it's influence) changes based on the density of space.
This would have to mean, like EM, the gravitational field does not expand with space. That's how we're able to deduce expansion, because the fields themselves are our reference points.
This isn't about waves/excitations of a field, it's about the field itself, if that makes any sense. If this is true, how do we reconcile the expansion of space with fields remaining constant?