The bending of light and lensing in modified gravity |
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| Authors: | J W Moffat V T Toth |
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| Institution: | Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada;Department of Physics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada |
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| Abstract: | Our modified gravity theory (MOG) was used successfully in the past to explain a range of astronomical and cosmological observations, including galaxy rotation curves, the cosmic microwave background acoustic peaks, and the galaxy mass power spectrum. MOG was also used successfully to explain the unusual features of the Bullet Cluster 1E0657?558 without exotic dark matter. In the present work, we derive the relativistic equations of motion in the spherically symmetric field of a point source in MOG and, in particular, we derive equations for light bending and lensing. Our results also have broader applications in the case of extended distributions of matter, and they can be used to validate the Bullet Cluster results and provide a possible explanation for the merging clusters in Abell 520. |
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| Keywords: | gravitation gravitational lensing relativity cosmology: observations |
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