Paper detail

PPN rotation curves in static distributions with spherical symmetry

From a Parametrized Post-Newtonian (PPN) [46-51] perspective, we address the question of whether or not the new degrees of freedom, represented by the PPN potentials, can lead to significant modifications in the dynamics of galaxies in the direction of rendering dark matter obsolete. Here, we focus on the study of rotation curves associated with spherically symmetric configurations. The values for the post-Newtonian parameters, which help us to classify the different metric theories of gravity, are tightly constrained mainly by solar system experiments [47,48]. However, in recent years, metric theories characterized by screening mechanisms [4,10,22,25] have become popular, due to the fact that they lead to the possibility of modifications in larger scales than the solar system while retaining the success of GR on it, allowing for violations of the constraints of the Post-Newtonian parameters. In such a context, we consider here two kinds of solutions for field equations: (i) Vacuum solutions and (ii) in the presence of a politropic distribution of matter. For the case (i) we find that the post-Newtonian corrections do not lead to modifications significant enough to be considered an alternative to the dark matter hypothesis. In the case (ii) we find that for a wide range of values for the PPN parameters γ, β, ξ, α_3 , ζ_1 and ζ_2 , the need for dark matter is unavoidable, in order to find flat rotation curves. It is only for theories in which ζ_3>0 that some resemblance of flat rotation curves is found. The latter suggests, at least for the models considered, that these are the only theories capable of replacing dark matter as a possible explanation for the dynamics of galaxies.