Dark Coincidences: Small-Scale Solutions with Refracted Gravity and MOND

Abstract

General relativity and its Newtonian weak field limit are not sufficient to explain the observed phenomenology in the Universe, from the formation of large-scale structures to the dynamics of galaxies, with the only presence of baryonic matter. The most investigated cosmological model, the $\Lambda$CDM, accounts for the majority of observations by introducing two dark components, dark energy and dark matter, which represent $\sim$95% of the mass-energy budget of the Universe. Nevertheless, the $\Lambda$CDM model faces important challenges on the scale of galaxies. For example, some very tight relations between the properties of dark and baryonic matters in disk galaxies, such as the baryonic Tully-Fisher relation (BTFR), the mass discrepancy-acceleration relation (MDAR), and the radial acceleration relation (RAR), which see the emergence of the acceleration scale $a_0\simeq 1.2\times 10^{-10}$ m s${}^{-2}$, cannot be intuitively explained by the CDM paradigm, where cosmic structures form through a stochastic merging process. An even more outstanding coincidence is due to the fact that the acceleration scale $a_0$, emerging from galaxy dynamics, also seems to be related to the cosmological constant $\Lambda$. Another challenge is provided by dwarf galaxies, which are darker than what is expected in their innermost regions. These pieces of evidence can be more naturally explained, or sometimes even predicted, by modified theories of gravity, that do not introduce any dark fluid. I illustrate possible solutions to these problems with the modified theory of gravity MOND, which departs from Newtonian gravity for accelerations smaller than $a_0$, and with Refracted Gravity, a novel classical theory of gravity introduced in 2016, where the modification of the law of gravity is instead regulated by a density scale.

34 pages, 7 figures, published on 16th January 2023 in Universe 2023, 9(1), 56, in the Special Issue "Modified Gravity and Dark Matter at the Scale of Galaxies"; accepted for publication on 12th January 2023

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