Modified Newtonian dynamics

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In physics, Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) is a theory that explains the galaxy rotation problem without assuming the existence of dark matter. Currently, the most widely accepted galactic rotation theory assumes that a halo of dark matter surrounds each galaxy, causing all the stars in the galaxy disc to orbit with the same velocity. When this uniform velocity was first observed it was unexpected because the Newtonian theory of gravity predicted that objects that are farther out will have lower velocities. For example, planets in the Solar System orbit with velocities that decrease as their distance from the Sun increases.

MOND was proposed by Mordehai Milgrom in 1981 to model the observed uniform velocity data without the dark matter assumption. His key insight was that Newton's Second Law (F = ma) for gravitational force has only been verified when gravitational acceleration is large.

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[edit] Overview: Galaxy dynamics

Observations of the rotation rates of spiral galaxies began in 1978. By the early 1980's it was clear that galaxies were not rotating in the same manner as the Solar System. A spiral galaxy consists of a bulge of stars at the centre with a vast disc of stars orbiting around the central group. If the orbits of the stars are governed solely by gravitational force, it was expected that stars at the outer edge of the disc would have a much lower orbital velocity than those near the middle. This is the pattern seen in the Solar System, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1 - Solar System Orbital Velocities
Planet Distance from Sun (AU) Average Orbital Velocity (km/s)
Mercury 0.39 47
Venus 0.72 35
Earth 1.0 30
Mars 1.5 24
Jupiter 5.2 13
Saturn 9.5 9.6
Uranus 19 6.8
Neptune 30 5.4

In the observed galaxies this pattern was not apparent. Stars near the outer edge were orbiting at the same speed as stars closer to the middle. If Newtonian theory applied then plotting the velocity of a star as a function of distance from the galactic centre should yield curve A in Figure 1 below. However, observations consistently provided lines like curve B. Instead of decreasing asymptotically to zero as the effect of gravity wanes, this curve remains flat, showing the same velocity at increasing distances from the bulge. Astronomers call this phenomenon the "flattening of galaxies' rotation curves".

Figure 1 - Expected (A) and observed (B) star velocities as a function of distance from the galactic center.
Figure 1 - Expected (A) and observed (B) star velocities as a function of distance from the galactic center.
Figure 2 - Postulated dark-matter halo around a spiral galaxy
Figure 2 - Postulated dark-matter halo around a spiral galaxy

Scientists hypothesized that the flatness of the rotation of galaxies was caused by matter outside the galaxy's visible disc; since all large galaxies showed the same characteristic, large galaxies must, according to this line of reasoning, be embedded in a halo of invisible, "dark" matter as shown in Figure 2.

[edit] The MOND Theory

In 1983, Mordehai Milgrom, a physicist at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, published two papers in Astrophysical Journal to propose a modification of Newton's second law of motion. Basically, this law states that an object of mass m, subject to a force F undergoes an acceleration a satisfying the simple equation F=ma. This law is well known to students, and has been verified in a variety of situations. However, it has never been verified in the case where the acceleration a is extremely small. And that is exactly what's happening at the scale of galaxies, where the distances between stars are so large that the gravitational force is extremely small.

[edit] The change

The modification proposed by Milgrom is the following: instead of F=ma, the equation should be F=mµ(a/a0)a, where µ(x) is a function that for a given variable x gives 1 if x is much larger than 1 ( x≫1 ) and gives x if x is much smaller than 1 ( 0 <x≪1 ). The term a0 is a proposed new constant, in the same sense that c (the speed of light) is a constant, except that a0 is acceleration whereas c is speed.

Here is the simple set of equations for the Modified Newtonian Dynamics:

\vec{F} = m \cdot \mu\!\left( { a \over a_0 } \right) \ \vec{a}
\mu (x) = 1 \mbox{ if } x\gg 1
\mu (x) = x \mbox{ if } |x|\ll 1


The exact form of µ is unspecified, only its behavior when the argument x is small or large. As Milgrom proved in his original paper, the form of µ does not change most of the consequences of the theory, such as the flattening of the rotation curve.

In the everyday world, a is much greater than a0 for all physical effects, therefore µ(a/a0)=1 and F=ma as usual. Consequently, the change in Newton's second law is negligible and Newton couldn't have seen it.
Since MOND was inspired by the desire to solve the flat rotation curve problem, it is not a surprise that using the MOND theory with observations reconciled this problem. This can be shown by a calculation of the new rotation curve.

[edit] Predicted rotation curve

Far away from the center of a galaxy, the gravitational force a star undergoes is, with good approximation:

F = \frac{GMm}{r^2}

with G the gravitation constant, M the mass of the galaxy, m the mass of the star and r the distance between the center and the star. Using the new law of dynamics gives:

F = \frac{GMm}{r^2} = m \mu{ \left( \frac{a}{a_0}\right)} a

Eliminating m gives:

\frac{GM}{r^2} = \mu{ \left( \frac{a}{a_0}\right)} a

Assuming that, at this large distance r, a is smaller than a0 and thus \mu{ \left( \frac{a}{a_0}\right)} = \frac{a}{a_0}, which gives:

\frac{GM}{r^2} = \frac{a^2}{a_0}

Therefore:

a = \frac{\sqrt{ G M a_0 }}{r}

Since the equation that relates the velocity to the acceleration for a circular orbit is a = \frac{v^2}{r} one has:

a = \frac{v^2}{r} = \frac{\sqrt{ G M a_0 }}{r}

and therefore:

v = \sqrt[4]{ G M a_0 }

Consequently, the velocity of stars on a circular orbit far from the center is a constant, and doesn't depend on the distance r: the rotation curve is flat.

The proportion between the "flat" rotation velocity to the observed mass derived here is matching the observed relation between "flat" velocity to luminosity known as the Tully-Fisher relation.

At the same time, there is a clear relationship between the velocity and the constant a0. The equation v=(GMa0)1/4 allows one to calculate a0 from the observed v and M. Milgrom found a0=1.2×10−10 ms−2. Milgrom has noted that this value is also

"... the acceleration you get by dividing the speed of light by the lifetime of the universe. If you start from zero velocity, with this acceleration you will reach the speed of light roughly in the lifetime of the universe."

Retrospectively, the impact of assumed value of a>>a0 for physical effects on Earth remains valid. Had a0 been larger, its consequences would have been visible on Earth and, since it is not the case, the new theory would have been inconsistent.

[edit] Consistency with the observations

Main article: scientific method

According to the Modified Newtonian Dynamics theory, every physical process that involves small accelerations will have an outcome different from that predicted by the simple law F=ma. Therefore, astronomers need to look for all such processes and verify that MOND remains compatible with observations, that is, within the limit of the uncertainties on the data. There is, however, a complication overlooked up to this point but that strongly affects the compatibility between MOND and the observed world: in a system considered as isolated, for example a single satellite orbiting a planet, the effect of MOND results in an increased velocity beyond a given range (actually, below a given acceleration, but for circular orbits it is the same thing), that depends on the mass of both the planet and the satellite. However, if the same system is actually orbiting a star, the planet and the satellite will be accelerated in the star's gravitational field. For the satellite, the sum of the two fields could yield acceleration greater than a0, and the orbit would not be the same as that in an isolated system.

For this reason, the typical acceleration of any physical process is not the only parameter astronomers must consider. Also critical is the process' environment, which is all external forces that are usually neglected. In his paper, Milgrom arranged the typical acceleration of various physical processes in a two-dimensional diagram. One parameter is the acceleration of the process itself, the other parameter is the acceleration induced by the environment.

This affects MOND's application to experimental observation and empirical data because all experiments done on Earth or its neighborhood are subject to the Sun's gravitational field, and this field is so strong that all objects in the Solar system undergo an acceleration greater than a0. This explains why the flattening of galaxies' rotation curve, or the MOND effect, had not been detected until the early 1980s and when astronomers first gathered empirical data of galaxies' rotation.

Therefore, only galaxies and other large systems are expected to exhibit the dynamics that will allow astronomers to verify that MOND agrees with observation. Since Milgrom's theory first appeared in 1983, the most accurate data has come from observations of distant galaxies and neighbors of the Milky Way. Within the uncertainties of the data, MOND has remained valid. The Milky Way itself is scattered with clouds of gas and interstellar dust, and until now it has not been possible to draw a rotation curve for the galaxy. Finally, the uncertainties on the velocity of galaxies within clusters and larger systems have been too large to conclude in favor of or against MOND. Indeed, conditions for conducting an experiment that could confirm or disprove MOND can only be performed outside the Solar system — farther even than the positions that the Pioneer and Voyager space probes have reached.

In search for observations that would validate his theory, Milgrom noticed that a special class of objects, the low surface brightness galaxies (LSB) is of particular interest: the radius of an LSB is large compared to its mass, and thus almost all stars are within the flat part of the rotation curve. Also, other theories predict that the velocity at the edge depends on the average surface brightness in addition to the LSB mass. Finally, no data on the rotation curve of these galaxies was available at the time. Milgrom thus could make the prediction that LSBs would have a rotation curve essentially flat, and with a relation between the flat velocity and the mass of the LSB identical to that of brighter galaxies.

Since then, many such LSBs have been observed, and while some astronomers have claimed their data invalidated MOND, up to now there has been no independently confirmed invalidation of MOND phenomenology.

[edit] The mathematics of MOND

In non-relativistic Modified Newtonian Dynamics, Poisson's equation,

\nabla^2 \Phi_N = 4 \pi G \rho

(where ΦN is the gravitational potential and ρ is the density distribution) is modified as

\nabla\cdot\left[ \mu \left( \frac{\left\| \nabla\Phi \right\|}{a_0} \right) \nabla\Phi\right] = 4\pi G \rho

where Φ is the MOND potential. The equation is to be solved with boundary condition \left\| \nabla\Phi \right\| \rightarrow 0 for \left\| \mathbf{r} \right\| \rightarrow \infty. The exact form of μ(ξ) is not constrained by observations, but must have the behaviour \mu(\xi) \sim 1 for ξ > > 1 (Newtonian regime), \mu(\xi) \sim \xi for ξ < < 1 (Deep-MOND regime). In the deep-MOND regime, the modified Poisson equation may be rewritten as

\nabla \cdot \left[ \frac{\left\| \nabla\Phi \right\|}{a_0} \nabla\Phi - \nabla\Phi_N \right] = 0

and that simplifies to

\frac{\left\| \nabla\Phi \right\|}{a_0} \nabla\Phi - \nabla\Phi_N = \nabla \times \mathbf{h}

The vector field \mathbf{h} is unknown, but is null whenever the density distribution is spherical, cylindrical or planar. In that case, MOND acceleration field is given by the simple formula

\mathbf{g}_M = \mathbf{g}_N \sqrt{\frac{a_0}{\left\| \mathbf{g}_N \right \|}}

where \mathbf{g}_N is the normal Newtonian field.

[edit] Discussion and criticisms

One reason why some astronomers find MOND difficult to accept is that it is an effective theory, not a physical theory. As an effective theory, it describes the dynamics of accelerated object with an equation, without any physical justification. This approach is completely different from Einstein's, who assumed that some fundamental physical principles were true (continuity, smoothness and isotropy of space-time, conservation of energy, principle of equivalence) and derived new equations from these principles, including the famous E=mc² and the less famous but extremely powerful field equations of general relativity

G_{\mu\nu}=\frac{8 \pi G}{c^4} T_{\mu\nu}.

For many, MOND seems to lack a physical ground, some new fundamental principle about matter, vacuum, or space-time that would lead to the modified equation F=mµ(a/a0)a. Supporters of MOND, on the other hand, have compared theories of dark matter to the now obscure aether hypothesis, which was discarded in favor of a fundamental change in the understanding of light. Instead of postulating the existence of an invisible influence to explain the observed mass discrepancy, supporters of MOND believe physicists should re-examine their understanding of acceleration.

Attempts in this direction have essentially been modifications of Einstein's theory of gravitation. When one looks at the equation F=mµ(a/a0)a, the value of a, and the parameter of µ seem to depend on m as well as F. However, for the gravitational force, F also depends on m. Therefore, a change in Newton's second law can be a change of the gravitational force or a change of inertia. The two are indistinguishable. Note that this is not true, for example, for the electromagnetic force: moving in the same weak electromagnetic field, two particles with the same charge but with different masses would follow fundamentally different trajectories. With the same charge, the F term in the MOND equation is the same for the two particles. However, with a different value for m, one could have a MONDian trajectory and not the other, even though they are subject to the same force.

However, in interstellar space, gravity is the main acting force, and since no experiment could be performed on Earth to determine whether MOND is a new theory of inertia or a new theory of gravity, physicists have concentrated their effort on the latter. Presently, they have achieved only partial success, devising a more complicated version of Einstein's theory of gravitation. The most successful relativistic version of MOND, which was proposed in 2004, is known as "TeVeS" for Tensor-Vector-Scalar. Although this most recent incarnation agrees with gravitational lensing observations, it introduces many new elements into the theory, and lacks the elegant simplicity of the original MOND proposal.

In the eyes of most cosmologists and astrophysicists, MOND is considered a possible but unlikely alternative to the more widely accepted theory of dark matter. As new data are collected, both MOND and dark matter are occasionally invalidated and occasionally supported, and no observation has yet conclusively settled the debate. Toward this goal, supporters of MOND have concentrated their effort on specific areas:

  • To determine phenomena predicted by MOND and to search for them. For example, the dynamics of satellites of the Milky Way could be distorted by the effects of MOND, in such a way that would be difficult to explain with a dark matter halo.
  • To obtain the relativistic extension of MOND that would incidentally help scientists understand how light is bent by galaxies' gravitational field. Although MOND cannot currently cope with this, TeVeS has shown promise.
  • To otherwise establish MOND as a theory of inertia and determine its fundamental principles. Progress in this direction has been minimal.

An empirical criticism of MOND, released in August 2006, involves the Bullet cluster, a system of two colliding galaxy clusters. In most instances where phenomena associated with either MOND or dark matter are present, they appear to flow from physical locations with similar centers of gravity. But, the dark matter-like effects in this colliding galactic cluster system appears to emanate from different points in space than the center of mass of the visible matter in the system, which is unusually easy to discern due to the high energy collisions of the gas in the vicinity of the colliding galactic clusters.[1]. MOND proponents admit that a purely baryonic MOND is not able to explain this observation. Therefore a “marriage” of MOND with ordinary hot neutrinos of 2eV has been proposed to save the hypothesis [2].

One more recent empirical finding which would be hard to reconcile with MOND (even the relativistic TeVeS version) is the possibility of large scale mapping of dark matter using gravitational lensing (Massey et al. 2007). It is not yet clear whether the effect - especially gravitational lensing by areas with no visible galaxy clusters - can be explained by any version of MOND, unless dark matter is included (which would go against the very reason MOND was proposed).

Another criticism of MOND is that it violates Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is usually correct. Any modifications to Newton's laws can also be explained in terms of distributions of dark matter, and the second explanation is simpler in that it requires fewer changes to rigorously-established scientific theory. However, proponents of MOND are quick to point out that extremely hypothetical candidates for dark matter such as WIMPs, six-dimensional dark matter theories, and the general requirement that dark matter be evenly distributed through space are no simpler than the idea that gravity acts differently at low accelerations. MOND proponents claim that DM fails the Occam's Razor in the Galaxies because the best theories of DM require 2 parameters per galaxy, not including the M/L ratio while MOND can fit almost all galaxies with just one universal parameter, not including the M/L ratio. Also no DM theory can simultaneously fit LSB galaxies (with very high DM components) and extremely large Elliptical galaxies (with very low DM components).

Beside MOND, two other notable theories that try to explain the mystery of the rotational curves are Nonsymmetric Gravitational Theory proposed by John Moffat and Weyl's conformal gravity by Philip Mannheim.

[edit] Tensor-vector-scalar gravity

Main article: Tensor-vector-scalar gravity

Tensor-Vector-Scalar gravity (TeVeS) is a proposed relativistic theory that is equivalent to Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) in the non-relativistic limit, which purports to explain the galaxy rotation problem without invoking dark matter. Originated by Jacob Bekenstein in 2004, it incorporates various dynamical and non-dynamical tensor fields, vector fields and scalar fields.

The break-through of TeVeS over MOND is that it can explain the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, a cosmic phenomenon in which nearby matter bends light, which has been confirmed many times.

A recent preliminary finding is that it can explain structure formation without CDM, but requiring ~2eV massive neutrinos (They are also required to fit some Clusters of galaxies, including Bullet Cluster) [3] and [4]. However, other authors (see Slosar, Melchiorri and Silk [5]) claim that TeVeS can't explain cosmic microwave background anisotropies and structure formation at the same time, i.e. ruling out those models at high significance.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] See also

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Theories of gravitation
Standard Alternatives to GR Unified field theories Other




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