The Effects of Inertial Forces on the Dynamics of Disk Galaxies

TL;DR

This paper investigates how non-inertial effects, specifically fictitious forces, could explain galaxy rotation curve discrepancies traditionally attributed to dark matter, by developing and applying a new model that fits observational data well.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model incorporating fictitious forces into galactic dynamics, offering an alternative explanation for rotation curve discrepancies without dark matter.

Findings

The model reproduces observed rotation curves accurately.

Fictitious forces mimic dark halo profiles.

The approach challenges the need for dark matter in galactic dynamics.

Abstract

When dealing with galactic dynamics, or more specifically, with galactic rotation curves, one basic assumption is always taken: the frame of reference relative to which the rotational velocities are given is assumed to be inertial. In other words, fictitious forces are assumed to vanish relative to the observational frame of a given galaxy. It might be interesting, however, to explore the outcomes of dropping that assumption; that is, to search for signatures of non-inertial behavior in the observed data. In this work, we show that the very discrepancy in galaxy rotation curves could be attributed to non-inertial effects. We derive a model for spiral galaxies that takes into account the possible influence of fictitious forces and find that the additional terms in the new model, due to fictitious forces, closely resemble dark halo profiles. Following this result, we apply the new model to a wide sample of galaxies, spanning a large range of luminosities and radii. It turns out that the new model accurately reproduces the structures of the rotation curves and provides very good fittings to the data.