A Covariant Version of Verlinde's Emergent Gravity

Abstract

A generally covariant version of Erik Verlinde's emergent gravity model is proposed. The Lagrangian constructed here allows an improved interpretation of the underlying mechanism. It suggests that de-Sitter space is filled with a vector-field that couples to baryonic matter and, by dragging on it, creates an effect similar to dark matter. We solve the covariant equation of motion in the background of a Schwarzschild space-time and obtain correction terms to the non-covariant expression. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the vector field can also mimic dark energy.