Ph.D Defense: “An investigation into nonstandard theories of gravity” — April 18, 2022 at 3:30 PM
Sarah Fisher
Mentor: Professor Eric Carlson
Department of Physics
Olin 101
Monday, April 18, 2022, 3:30 – 4:30 PM
The defense will follow the public presentation (private)
A reception in the Olin Lobby will follow the defense
To obtain the video conference link, please contact wfuphys@wfu.edu
Abstract
This dissertation critically reexamines two different alternatives to standard gravity.
In both cases, serious flaws in the methodology of previous work were found, raising
doubts as to the interpretation of results found by others. These issues are particularly
prominent in the context of perfect fluids, where the modifications introduce
additional complexity into the choice of an appropriate matter Lagrangian. In one
case, a large category of results is found to be physically meaningless; in the other a
many-order-of-magnitude improvement in limits is demonstrated.
In both cases, serious flaws in the methodology of previous work were found, raising
doubts as to the interpretation of results found by others. These issues are particularly
prominent in the context of perfect fluids, where the modifications introduce
additional complexity into the choice of an appropriate matter Lagrangian. In one
case, a large category of results is found to be physically meaningless; in the other a
many-order-of-magnitude improvement in limits is demonstrated.
