Gravitational Anomaly Measurement in Wide Binaries is Sensitive to Orbital Modeling
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arXiv
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866912961988132864 |
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| author | Saad, Serat M. Ting, Yuan-Sen |
| author_facet | Saad, Serat M. Ting, Yuan-Sen |
| contents | Recent work by Chae et al. (2026) reported a gravitational anomaly in 36 wide-binary pairs, finding a gravity boost factor of $γ\equiv G_{\rm eff}/G_{\rm N} \approx 1.60_{-0.14}^{+0.17}$ at low accelerations, consistent with predictions from Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). We reanalyze the same dataset using a hierarchical Bayesian model that infers a global $γ$ across all systems while fitting three-dimensional orbital elements. Our model yields $γ= 1.12^{+0.27}_{-0.22}$, consistent with Newtonian gravity ($γ= 1$) at the $\sim0.4σ$ level. To identify the source of the discrepancy, we perform a test using an approach similar to Chae et al. (2026), replacing the semi-major axis with a geometric de-projection of the observed projected separation. This test yields $γ= 1.56^{+0.21}_{-0.18}$, closely matching the result of Chae et al. (2026). This suggests that the inferred value of $γ$ is sensitive to how the three-dimensional orbital separation is modeled, and including an independent semi-major axis parameter can account for velocity excesses that would otherwise be attributed to non-Newtonian gravity. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_11015 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Gravitational Anomaly Measurement in Wide Binaries is Sensitive to Orbital Modeling Saad, Serat M. Ting, Yuan-Sen Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Recent work by Chae et al. (2026) reported a gravitational anomaly in 36 wide-binary pairs, finding a gravity boost factor of $γ\equiv G_{\rm eff}/G_{\rm N} \approx 1.60_{-0.14}^{+0.17}$ at low accelerations, consistent with predictions from Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). We reanalyze the same dataset using a hierarchical Bayesian model that infers a global $γ$ across all systems while fitting three-dimensional orbital elements. Our model yields $γ= 1.12^{+0.27}_{-0.22}$, consistent with Newtonian gravity ($γ= 1$) at the $\sim0.4σ$ level. To identify the source of the discrepancy, we perform a test using an approach similar to Chae et al. (2026), replacing the semi-major axis with a geometric de-projection of the observed projected separation. This test yields $γ= 1.56^{+0.21}_{-0.18}$, closely matching the result of Chae et al. (2026). This suggests that the inferred value of $γ$ is sensitive to how the three-dimensional orbital separation is modeled, and including an independent semi-major axis parameter can account for velocity excesses that would otherwise be attributed to non-Newtonian gravity. |
| title | Gravitational Anomaly Measurement in Wide Binaries is Sensitive to Orbital Modeling |
| topic | Solar and Stellar Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11015 |