A geometric alternative to dark matter

The existence of "dark matter", inferred from the observed rotation curves of galaxies, is a hypothesis which is widely regarded as problematic. This paper proposes an alternative hypothesis based on the space-time geometry near a rotating body and formulated in terms of the dragging of in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2020-02
Main Author: Rourke, Colin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dark matter
Galactic rotation
Hypotheses
Relativity
Rotating bodies
Rotating matter
Spiral galaxies
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The existence of "dark matter", inferred from the observed rotation curves of galaxies, is a hypothesis which is widely regarded as problematic. This paper proposes an alternative hypothesis based on the space-time geometry near a rotating body and formulated in terms of the dragging of inertial frames. This hypothesis is true in a certain linear approximation to General Relativity (D Sciama, Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 113 (1953) 34--42) and is justified in general by Mach's principle. Dark matter corrects the rotation curve but does not predict the ubiquitous spiral structure of galaxies. The geometric alternative suggested here deals with both problems and allows the construction of a simple model for the dynamics of spiral galaxies which fits observations well.
ISSN:2331-8422