Analysis of static and spherically-symmetric solutions in NDL theory of gravitation

TL;DR

This paper examines static, spherically symmetric solutions in NDL gravity, showing agreement with General Relativity in classic tests but predicting no static black holes due to nonlinear graviton interactions.

Contribution

It provides the first analysis of static spherical solutions in NDL theory, highlighting differences from GR in strong-field regimes and black hole existence.

Findings

NDL agrees with GR in three classic tests

NDL does not permit static spherically symmetric black holes

Potential differences emerge in strong gravitational fields

Abstract

We investigate a static solution with spherical symmetry of a recently proposed field theory of gravitation. In this so-called NDL theory, matter interacts with gravity in accordance with the Weak Equivalence Principle, while gravitons have a nonlinear self-interaction. It is shown that the predictions of NDL agree with those of General Relativity in the three classic tests. However, there are potential differences in the strong-field limit, which we illustrate by proving that this theory does not allow the existence of static and spherically symmetric black holes.