Could dark matter be explained as a quantum gravity effect?

[ensabah6]

The paper below suggests an alternative to dark matter, the strength of gravity is greater than is predicted by GR due to graviton-graviton self-interactions in regions of higher density of matter. Hence dark matter is unnecessary. The increase would be too small to be measured locally, hence agreement with GR, but adds up over galaxy-wide distances. It's not dark matter that binds galaxy together but graviton-graviton self-interactions.

Implications of Graviton-Graviton Interaction to Dark Matter
Authors: A. Deur
(Submitted on 26 Jan 2009 (v1), last revised 6 May 2009 (this version, v2))

Abstract: Our present understanding of the universe requires the existence of dark matter and dark energy. We describe here a natural mechanism that could make exotic dark matter and possibly dark energy unnecessary. Graviton-graviton interactions increase the gravitational binding of matter. This increase, for large massive systems such as galaxies, may be large enough to make exotic dark matter superfluous. Within a weak field approximation we compute the effect on the rotation curves of galaxies and find the correct magnitude and distribution without need for arbitrary parameters or additional exotic particles. The Tully-Fisher relation also emerges naturally from this framework. The computations are further applied to galaxy clusters.

Comments: Version published in Phys. Lett. B. Added material: 1) We explicited the steps leading from the Einstein-Hilbert Lagrangian to our simplified Lagrangian. 2) We showed how the Tully-Fisher relation emerges naturally from our framework. 3) We added a discussion on the approximations we used
Subjects: Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO); High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
Journal reference: Physics Letters B 676, 21 (2009)
DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2009.04.060
Cite as: arXiv:0901.4005v2 [astro-ph.CO]

 

[thedeester1]

isnt Quantum mechanics based on Plank's constant...Thats going to ruin a lot of careers if its right!

 

[twofish-quant]

Not convinced since it ignores the MOND literature. The approach of MOND is "we don't know what is causing the rotation curves so we try to fit the rotation curves to some gravity rule" and they haven't gotten a general gravity rule that works.

There's also this statement, which is false

---Galaxy luminous masses and sizes being not well known, we adjusted M and r0 to best fit the data.

Galaxy luminous masses and sizes are quite well known. The problem is that if you use the measured masses rather than just try curve fitting, then you find that you don't get a single gravity rule.