Universal Gravitation as Lorentz-covariant Dynamics

Abstract

This paper has been withdrawn by the author after further work showed the proposed theoretical approach cannot fit planetary perihelion precession data. As presented, the theory doesn't fit gravitational light deflection by the sun either, but a straightforward theoretical change does remedy that; however a proper fit to planetary perihelion precession data is not thus obtained. The author's stated philosophical objections to the Einstein equation can be dealt with in a markedly different way -- a new paper entitled "Unique Einstein Gravity from Feynman's Lorentz Condition" has been submitted. Einstein's equivalence principle implies that the acceleration of a particle in a "specified" gravitational field is independent of its mass. While this is certainly true to great accuracy for bodies we observe in the Earth's gravitational field, a hypothetical body of mass comparable to the Earth's would perceptibly cause the Earth to fall toward it, which would feed back into the strength as a function of time of the Earth's gravitational field affecting that body. In short, Einstein's equivalence principle isn't exact, but is an approximation that ignores recoil of the "specified" gravitational field, which sheds light on why general relativity has no clearly delineated native embodiment of conserved four-momentum. Einstein's 1905 relativity of course doesn't have the inexactitudes he unwittingly built into GR, so it is natural to explore a Lorentz-covariant gravitational theory patterned directly on electromagnetism, wherein a system's zero-divergence overall stress-energy, including all gravitational feedback contributions, is the source of its gravitational tensor potential. Remarkably, that alone completely determines Lorentz-covariant gravity's interaction with any conservative system of locally interacting classical fields; no additional "principles" of any kind are required. The highly intricate equation for the gravitational interaction contribution to such a system's Lagrangian density is only amenable to solution by successively refined approximation, however.