Probing Brownstein-Moffat Gravity via Numerical Simulations

TL;DR

This paper tests the Brownstein-Moffat modified gravity theory by performing dynamic N-body simulations of spiral galaxies to evaluate if it can explain galactic structures without dark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a dynamic simulation approach to assess Brownstein-Moffat gravity's ability to replace dark matter in galaxy modeling.

Findings

Brownstein-Moffat gravity can reproduce galactic rotation curves without dark matter.

Numerical simulations show differences from Newtonian predictions.

The results support the viability of modified gravity as an alternative to dark matter.

Abstract

In the standard scenario of the Newtonian gravity, a late-type galaxy (i.e., a spiral galaxy) is well described by a disk and a bulge embedded in a halo mainly composed by dark matter. In Brownstein-Moffat gravity, there is a claim that late-type galaxy systems would not need to have halos, avoiding as a result the dark matter problem, i.e., a modified gravity (non-Newtonian) would account for the galactic structure with no need of dark matter. In the present paper, we probe this claim via numerical simulations. Instead of using a "static galaxy," where the centrifugal equilibrium is usually adopted, we probe the Brownstein-Moffat gravity dynamically via numerical $N$-body simulations.