Halos of Modified Gravity

Understand

We describe how a certain simple modification of general relativity, in which the local cosmological constant is allowed to depend on the space-time curvature, predicts the existence of halos of modified gravity surrounding spherically-symmetric objects.

• We show that the gravitational mass of an object weighed together with its halo can be much larger than its gravitational mass as seen from inside the halo.
• This effect could provide an alternative explanation of the dark-matter phenomenon in galaxies.
• In this case, the local cosmological constant in the solar system must be some six orders of magnitude larger than its cosmic value obtained in the supernovae type Ia experiments.