Improving relativistic MOND with Galileon k-mouflage

Understand

We propose a simple field theory reproducing the MOND phenomenology at galaxy scale, while predicting negligible deviations from general relativity at small scales thanks to an extended Vainshtein ("k-mouflage") mechanism induced by a covariant Galileon-type Lagrangian.

• The model passes solar-system tests at the post-Newtonian order, including those of local Lorentz invariance, and its anomalous forces in binary-pulsar systems are orders of magnitude smaller than the tightest experimental constraints.
• The large-distance behavior is obtained as in Bekenstein's tensor-vector-scalar (TeVeS) model, but with several simplifications.
• In particular, no fine-tuned function is needed to interpolate between the MOND and Newtonian regimes, and no dynamics needs to be defined for the vector field because preferred-frame effects are negligible at small distances.