Nonlocal Gravity in the Solar System

TL;DR

This paper explores a nonlocal gravity theory's effects within the Solar System, estimating its parameters and implications for planetary motion, particularly perihelion precession, to understand its potential to mimic dark matter.

Contribution

It introduces a nonlocal gravity model applied to Solar System dynamics and provides initial estimates for its parameters based on planetary perihelion precession.

Findings

Nonlocal gravity can simulate dark matter effects in the Solar System.

A lower limit for the short-range parameter a_0 is estimated from planetary precession.

The theory's parameters are partially constrained by Solar System observations.

Abstract

The implications of the recent classical nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation for gravitational physics in the Solar System are investigated. In this theory, the nonlocal character of gravity appears to simulate dark matter. Nonlocal gravity in the Newtonian regime involves a reciprocal kernel with three spatial parameters, of which two have already been determined from the rotation curves of spiral galaxies and the internal dynamics of clusters of galaxies. However, the short-range parameter a_0 remains to be determined. In this connection, the nonlocal contribution to the perihelion precession of a planetary orbit is estimated and a preliminary lower limit on a_0 is determined.