Local and global gravity

TL;DR

This paper challenges the traditional view that gravity only has local effects, demonstrating that global gravitational phenomena can influence galactic dynamics and light propagation, highlighting differences between non-relativistic and relativistic gravity.

Contribution

It explicitly identifies and analyzes intrinsically global gravitational effects, including the influence of cosmological Hubble flow on galaxy dynamics and the global phase shift of light waves in gravitational fields.

Findings

Hubble flow can modify star and gas motions within galaxies.

Global effects may eliminate the need for dark matter in explaining galactic dynamics.

Classical light waves acquire a global, path-dependent phase in gravitational fields.

Abstract

Our long experience with Newtonian potentials has inured us to the view that gravity only produces local effects. In this paper we challenge this quite deeply ingrained notion and explicitly identify some intrinsically global gravitational effects. In particular we show that the global cosmological Hubble flow can actually modify the motions of stars and gas within individual galaxies, and even do so in a way which can apparently eliminate the need for galactic dark matter. Also we show that a classical light wave acquires an observable, global, path dependent phase in traversing a gravitational field. Both of these effects serve to underscore the intrinsic difference between non-relativistic and relativistic gravity.