Dr. Christian Corda, a visiting faculty member in SUNY Poly's Department of Mathematics and Physics, was awarded an Honorable Mention by the Gravity Research Foundation in a "Best Essays on Gravitation" competition in 2024.

The main purpose of the Gravity Research Foundation is to encourage scientific research and to arrive at a more complete understanding of the phenomenon of gravitation through its annual awards for essays on gravitation with the expectation that beneficial uses will ensue.

Dr. Christian Corda collaborated with Dr. Elmo Benedetto (University of Salerno, Italy) and Dr. Ignazio Licata (Institute for Scientific Methodology, Italy). Their essay is entitled “Equivalence Principle and Machian Origin of Extended Gravity”.

Chae’s analyses on GAIA observations of wide binary stars have fortified the paradigm of extended gravity with particular attention to MOND-like theories. The authors recall that, starting from the origin of Einstein’s general relativity, the request of Mach on the structure of the theory has been the core of the foundational debate.

This issue is strictly connected with the nature of mass-energy equivalence. This was exactly the key point that Einstein used to derive the same general relativity. On the other hand, the current requirements of particle physics and the open questions within extended gravity theories, which have recently been further strengthened by analyses of GAIA observations, request a better understanding of the Equivalence Principle. By considering a direct coupling between the Ricci curvature scalar and the matter Lagrangian, a non-geodesic ratio between the inertial and the gravitational mass can be fixed, and MOND-like theories are retrieved at low energies.

To read their work, visit http://arxiv.org/abs/2405.08024