Using elliptical galaxy kinematics to compare the strength of gravity in cosmological regions of differing gravitational potential - a first look

Various models of modified gravity invoke 'screening' mechanisms that are sensitive to the value of the local gravitational potential. This could have observable consequences for galaxies. These consequences might be seen by comparing two proxies for galaxy mass - their luminosity and their internal kinematics - as a function of local galaxy density. Motivated by this prospect, we have compared the observed properties of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) inside and outside of voids in the cosmic large scale structure. We used archival measurements of line widths, luminosities, redshifts, colours, and positions of galaxies in conjunction with recent void catalogues to construct comparison LRG samples inside and outside of voids. We fitted these two samples to the well-established fundamental plane of elliptical galaxies to constrain any differences between the inferred value of the Newtonian gravitational constant G for the two samples. We obtained a null result, with an upper limit on any fractional difference in G within and outside of cosmological voids to be alpha = delta G/G similar to 40 per cent. This upper bound is dominated by the small-number statistics of our N similar to 100 within-void LRG sample. With the caveat that environmental effects could influence various parameters such as star formation, we estimate that a 1 per cent statistical limit on alpha could be attained with data from 10(5) elliptical galaxies within voids. This is within the reach of future photometric and spectroscopic surveys, both of which are required to pursue this method.