A Critique of Covariant Emergent Gravity

Abstract

I address some problems encountered in the formulation of relativistic models encompassing the MOND phenomenology of radial acceleration. I explore scalar and vector theories with fractional kinetic terms and $f(R)$-type gravity, demanding that the energy density be bounded from below and that superluminal modes be absent, but also that some consistency constraints with observational results hold. I identify configurations whose energy is unbounded from below and formulate some no-go statements for vector field models and modified gravity theories. Finally, I discuss superfluid dark matter as a hybrid theory lying between CDM and modified gravity, highlighting some difficulties present also in this case, which appears preferable to the others.

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• On Filaments, Prolate Halos and Rotation Curves