The slowing of expansion in the matter dominated era On all the graphs of the inflation of the universe, the era dominated by matter is slowing the rate of expansion. With an intuitive explanation (for all you science communicators out there) could you tell me if the deceleration was = to the gravitational rate of deceleration?
What did the deceleration start at? Where did it bottom out? And last but not least Is the rate of acceleration occurring at the inverse of the deceleration of gravity?
I would welcome as many nuanced explanations as possible from as many sources as possible. A single answer, no matter how well written, can include all viewpoints.
 A: Cosmic expansion decelerates due to the mutual gravitational attraction of all of the universe's matter. This is quite a simple concept. If you place a bunch of matter at rest, it will collapse under its gravity. If you instead give it an initial expansion kick, the expansion will gradually slow over time.
By the way, while my description uses only the everyday Newtonian intuition for gravity, that is completely valid. Newtonian gravity predicts exactly the correct cosmic expansion dynamics in a matter dominated universe..
A: 
Jason Verreault sked: "could you tell me if the deceleration was = to the gravitational rate of deceleration?"

Yes, it was and still is, the present acceleration is also gravitational and force free.

Jason Verreault sked: "What did the deceleration start at?"

If there was inflation right after that, and if there was a big bang singularity right from the start, ending at the time below when the accelerated era began:

Jason Verreault sked: "Where did it bottom out?"

When ä=0 at a≈0.61 and t≈7.7 Gyr after the big bang, see here.
