A study of the orbital motions of large binaries has revealed evidence that scalar gravity collapses at low acceleration. The finding is consistent with a modified theory called MOND and challenges current notions of dark matter. The implications for astrophysics, physics and cosmology are profound, and the findings have been recognized as an important discovery by experts in the field.
A new study reports compelling evidence of record gravitational collapse at the lower limit of acceleration, resulting from a verifiable analysis of the orbital motions of long, widely spaced binary stars. Such stars are commonly called broad binaries in astronomy and astrophysics. The study was led by Kyu-Hyun Chae, professor of physics and astronomy at Sejong University in Seoul, and used up to 26,500 binaries wide within 650 light-years (LY), which were detected by the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope.
To a significant improvement over other research, Chai’s study focused on calculating the gravitational accelerations experienced by binary stars as a function of their separation, or equivalently, orbital period. This was achieved by Monte Carlo projection of the observed sky projection motions in three-dimensional space.
Zhai explains, “From the beginning, it seemed clear to me that gravity could be experienced directly and effectively by calculating acceleration because the gravitational field itself is an acceleration. My recent research experiences with galactic rotation curves led me to this idea. Large galactic and binary disks share some similarities in their orbits.” , although wide binaries follow very long orbits, while hydrogen gas molecules in a galactic disk follow nearly circular orbits.”
Furthermore, Chae calibrated the incidence rate of internal interfering hidden diodes in standard acceleration, in contrast to other studies.
The study revealed that when two stars orbit each other with accelerations of less than one nanometer per second squared, they begin to deviate from the predictions of Newton’s law of universal gravitation and Einstein’s general relativity. For accelerations below approximately 0.1 nanometers per second squared, the observed acceleration is about 30 to 40 percent greater than the Newton-Einstein prediction. The significance is meaningful and meets the traditional 5 sigma criteria for a scientific discovery. In a sample 20,000 diodes wide within a distance limit of 650 LY, two independent accelerator voltages exhibit, respectively, deviations of more than 5 sigma of significance in the same direction.
Since the observed acceleration stronger than about 10 nanometers per second squared agrees well with the Newton-Einstein prediction from the same analysis, the observed increase in acceleration at lower accelerations is a puzzle. Interestingly, this collapse of the Newton-Einstein theory at the weakest acceleration was proposed 40 years ago by theoretical physicist Mordehai Milgrom at the Weizmann Institute in Israel in a new theoretical framework called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) or Milgrom dynamics in current usage.
Unlike galactic rotation curves, where the observed increased acceleration could theoretically be attributed to dark matter in standard Newton-Einstein gravity, the broad binary dynamics could not be affected by them even if they were present. Standard gravity simply collapses at the weak acceleration limit according to the MOND framework.
The implications of broad binary dynamics run deep in astrophysics, theoretical physics, and cosmology. Deviations observed in Mercury’s orbits in the 19th century led to Einstein’s general relativity. Deviations now at large binaries require a new theory that extends general relativity to the MOND low-acceleration limit.
For all the successes of Newtonian gravity, general relativity is essential for relativistic gravitational phenomena such as black holes and gravitational waves. Likewise, despite all the successes of general relativity, a new theory is needed for the MOND phenomenon in the weak acceleration limit. The cataclysm of weak gravitational acceleration may bear some resemblance to the ultraviolet cataclysm of classical electrodynamics that led to quantum physics.
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