Can higher order curvature theories explain rotation curves of galaxies?

TL;DR

Higher order curvature gravity theories can potentially explain galaxy rotation curves without dark matter by introducing a repulsive correction to the gravitational potential that fits observational data.

Contribution

This paper demonstrates that higher order curvature theories can account for galaxy rotation curves without dark matter, providing an alternative explanation to standard models.

Findings

Milky Way rotation curve fits without dark matter

Repulsive correction increases with distance

Potential applicability to other galaxies

Abstract

Higher order curvature gravity has recently received a lot of attention due to the fact that it gives rise to cosmological models which seem capable of solving dark energy and quintessence issues without using "ad hoc" scalar fields. In this letter, a gravitational potential is obtained which differs from the Newtonian one because of a repulsive correction increasing with distance. We evaluate the rotation curve of our Galaxy and compare it with the observed data in order both to test the viability of these theories and to estimate the scalelength of the correction. It is remarkable that the Milky Way rotation curve is well fitted without the need of any dark matter halo and a similar result tentatively holds also for other galaxies.