A geometric alternative to dark matter
Abstract
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.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1911.08920,
title = {A geometric alternative to dark matter},
author = {Colin Rourke},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.08920},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
11 pages, 7 figures (pdf and jpg). This paper is intended as an accessible introduction to the author's book arXiv:astro-ph/0311033v5. This version (v2) has some added information about units and observations in response to comments from a referee