On the Motion of Matter in Spacetime
Abstract
We argue that the geodesic hypothesis based on auto-parallels of the Levi-Civita connection may need refinement in theories of gravity with additional scalar fields. This argument is illustrated with a re-formulation of the Brans-Dicke theory in terms of a spacetime connection with torsion determined dynamically in terms of the gradient of the Brans-Dicke scalar field. The perihelion shift in the orbit of Mercury is calculated on the alternative hypothesis that its world-line is an auto-parallel of such a connection. If scalar fields couple significantly to matter and spinless test particles move on such world-lines, current time keeping methods based on the conventional geodesic hypothesis may need refinement.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0107017,
title = {On the Motion of Matter in Spacetime},
author = {T. Dereli and R. W. Tucker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0107017},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
7 pages LATEX file, no figures