A Recipe to Probe Alternative Theories of Gravitation via N-body Numerical Simulations. I. Spiral Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method using N-body simulations to test alternative gravity theories by analyzing spiral galaxy dynamics, providing a new way to constrain such theories' parameters.

Contribution

It develops a modified Gadget-2 simulation framework to evaluate alternative gravitation theories with Yukawa-like potentials in galactic structures.

Findings

Galactic dynamics can constrain parameters of alternative gravity theories.

The simulation method is adaptable to any superposition-principle-valid alternative gravity theory.

Abstract

A way to probe alternative theories of gravitation is to study if they could account for the structures of the universe. We then modified the well-known Gadget-2 code to probe alternative theories of gravitation through galactic dynamics. As an application, we simulate the evolution of spiral galaxies to probe alternative theories of gravitation whose weak field limits have a Yukawa-like gravitational potential. These simulations show that galactic dynamics can be used to constrain the parameters associated with alternative theories of gravitation. It is worth stressing that the recipe given in the present study can be applied to any other alternative theory of gravitation in which the superposition principle is valid.