English

STVG-MOG Cluster Dynamics and the Cosmological $1/r^2$ Force Law from Pairwise kSZ Data

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-04-30 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We investigate whether Scalar-Tensor-Vector Gravity in its weak-field modified gravity form can account for the cluster-scale inverse-square force law inferred from recent kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich measurements of cluster pairwise motions. The starting point is the X-COP cluster fit of STVG-MOG, for which a representative baryonic cluster mass M1015MM\sim 10^{15}M_\odot together with parameters α9.11\alpha\sim 9.11 and μ0.196 Mpc1\mu\sim 0.196~{\rm Mpc}^{-1} provides a successful description of cluster dynamics without particle dark matter. We extrapolate this fit to the separation range 3030 to 230 Mpc230~{\rm Mpc}, relevant for the pairwise kSZ analysis. Since the Yukawa transition length μ15.1 Mpc\mu^{-1}\simeq 5.1~{\rm Mpc} is much smaller than these separations, the STVG-MOG acceleration law reduces to an effective inverse-square form. This explains why the theory can satisfy the observed Newtonian behavior while remaining distinct from MOND-like long-distance modifications. We derive the corresponding pairwise velocity curve and show that, after fitting a single overall kSZ amplitude, the extrapolated STVG-MOG prediction reproduces the measured trend of the pairwise kSZ data. The analysis shows that the X-COP cluster fit and the cosmological-scale kSZ force-law result are mutually consistent within STVG-MOG.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.23440,
  title  = {STVG-MOG Cluster Dynamics and the Cosmological $1/r^2$ Force Law from Pairwise kSZ Data},
  author = {John W. Moffat},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.23440},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages, 2 figures