Questions tagged [modified-gravity]

A set of theories that attempt to take the basics of general relativity, and extend it in such a way that it solves various problems. This applies to Milgrom's MOND proposal, but also includes such other things as Einstein-Cartan theory, Brans-Dicke theory, and $f(R)$ gravity.

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Are modified theories of gravity credible?

I'm a statistician with a little training in physics and would just like to know the general consensus on a few things. I'm reading a book by John Moffat which basically tries to state how GR makes failed predictions in certain situations. I know GR…
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Derivatives of distributions in general relativity

I am having some trouble when trying to reproduce some calculations involving the description of distributions (mostly used in spacetime junction conditions). I am trying to reproduce the calculations in this paper. In the appendix, I can't derive…
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Does MOND make good predictions?

Well, it does according to this preprint for certain scales. What would be a simple way to explain MOND to a layman? Does it ignore mainstream physics? How much?
Mark
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What are Galileons good for?

Lately I've seen many papers (for example "The galileon as a local modification of gravity"; 292 total hits on the arXiv) on types of field theories known as Galileons, and I'm wondering what the motivation for studying them is. I often hear of them…
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Why does only gravity leak into extra non-compact dimensions?

This article K. Pardo, et. al., Limits on the number of spacetime dimensions from GW170817, Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2018, 2018. which was published recently in JCAP states that they put constraints on the number of…
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Gravity with more than one metric tensor

As weird as it sounds, yes, there are gravity theories with more than one metric tensor. This is called bimetric gravity. My question to those who have encountered bimetric gravity before: a) Bimetric gravity was shown to be inconsistent with the…
user106422
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What current alternatives are there to the standard concordance model of cosmology?

The current "standard model" or concordance model of cosmology is Lambda CDM which includes late time acceleration due to a cosmological constant, cold dark matter as the missing matter component and an inflationary period at very early times. What…
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Dark Matter vs Modified Gravity

Why do cosmologists and astrophysicists assume that the reason for the higher velocities of outer stars in galaxies is due to matter at all? The name dark matter seems misleading. Couldn't gravity just work different on larger scales? After years of…
Noon36
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Implications of the LIGO detections on the 'Modified Gravity' Program

We all know that GR needs modification at the microscopic scale but there are some attempts to modify GR in the classical regime as well, known by the name of "Modified Gravity". As far as I understand, these attempts can be possibly justified in…
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Why do we study teleparallel gravity if it is equivalent to general relativity?

We know there are many modified theories of gravity, like $f(R)$ gravity, $f(T)$ gravity, and alternative theory of gravity, that is teleparallel gravity. Currently I am studying this theory. Teleparallel gravity is equivalent to general relativity…
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Is there any evidence for dark matter besides gravitational effects?

Is there any evidence for dark matter besides just its gravitational effects? What I’m getting at is...why are we so quick to assume it’s any kind of “matter” at all rather than just some unexplained fluke of gravity?
Ashish
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Does dark matter have to be matter?

There is a very similar question to this one: Is dark matter really matter?. But the particular aspect I'm asking about seems not to be mentioned there. So, here we go: Does dark matter have to exist as matter? Or, is it possible that space-time is…
user1264
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What is the aim of modified GR theories?

Having finished an introductory course in GR, I started reading a bit about the modified general relativity theories, especially f(R) GR and scalar-tensor theories. However, I am unable to understand the appeal of these theories. Are they studied…
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Is the Weitzenböck connection the only connection with torsion, but without curvature?

In teleparallel gravity, the (local) connection coefficients of the Weitzenböck connection are given by $$ \Pi^{\beta}{}_{\mu\nu}= h^{\beta}_{i} \partial_{\nu}h^{i}_{\mu} - \Gamma^{\beta}{}_{\mu\nu} \, $$ where $ \Gamma^{\beta}{}_{\mu\nu} $ is the…
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Propagator in Brans-Dicke Gravity

Consider an action of the form $$ S = -\frac{2}{\kappa^2}\int d^4x\sqrt{-g}~\left(\phi R + \phi\mathcal{L}_{matter}\right). $$ Expanding this to second order in $h_{\mu\nu}$ and including a harmonic gauge fixing term $\mathcal{L}_{G F}=…
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