Paper
Tests of general relativity in pseudo-Newtonian approach
Authors
Naman Goyal, Banibrata Mukhopadhyay, Ashish Kumar Meena
Abstract
We investigate the extent to which pseudo-Newtonian gravitational potentials can reproduce classic tests of general relativity without resorting to full general relativistic formalisms. This is useful for the researchers seeking intuitive insight into relativistic gravity. Focusing on the perihelion precession of Mercury, gravitational redshift, and gravitational light bending, we derive analytical expressions for orbital precession and demonstrate that, with suitable physically acceptable parameters, pseudo-Newtonian approaches can accurately reproduce the observed perihelion advance and gravitational redshift. However, we confirm that no single potential consistently captures all relativistic effects. In particular, while certain parameters yield agreement with general relativity for planetary motion and redshift, they fail to reproduce gravitational lensing over a broad range of impact parameters. Our results highlight both the usefulness and limitations of pseudo-Newtonian methods in modeling gravitational phenomena. Although the pseudo-Newtonian approach cannot serve as universal substitutes for general relativity, especially in strong-field regimes, it provides valuable semi-analytical insight and pedagogical simplicity. Our results indicate the usefulness of the pseudo-Newtonian approach to uncover more complicated phenomena involved with strong field gravity in possibly modification to general relativity.
Metadata
Related papers
Fractal universe and quantum gravity made simple
Fabio Briscese, Gianluca Calcagni • 2026-03-25
POLY-SIM: Polyglot Speaker Identification with Missing Modality Grand Challenge 2026 Evaluation Plan
Marta Moscati, Muhammad Saad Saeed, Marina Zanoni, Mubashir Noman, Rohan Kuma... • 2026-03-25
LensWalk: Agentic Video Understanding by Planning How You See in Videos
Keliang Li, Yansong Li, Hongze Shen, Mengdi Liu, Hong Chang, Shiguang Shan • 2026-03-25
Orientation Reconstruction of Proteins using Coulomb Explosions
Tomas André, Alfredo Bellisario, Nicusor Timneanu, Carl Caleman • 2026-03-25
The role of spatial context and multitask learning in the detection of organic and conventional farming systems based on Sentinel-2 time series
Jan Hemmerling, Marcel Schwieder, Philippe Rufin, Leon-Friedrich Thomas, Mire... • 2026-03-25
Raw Data (Debug)
{
"raw_xml": "<entry>\n <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20261v1</id>\n <title>Tests of general relativity in pseudo-Newtonian approach</title>\n <updated>2026-02-23T19:00:07Z</updated>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20261v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.20261v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n <summary>We investigate the extent to which pseudo-Newtonian gravitational potentials can reproduce classic tests of general relativity without resorting to full general relativistic formalisms. This is useful for the researchers seeking intuitive insight into relativistic gravity. Focusing on the perihelion precession of Mercury, gravitational redshift, and gravitational light bending, we derive analytical expressions for orbital precession and demonstrate that, with suitable physically acceptable parameters, pseudo-Newtonian approaches can accurately reproduce the observed perihelion advance and gravitational redshift. However, we confirm that no single potential consistently captures all relativistic effects. In particular, while certain parameters yield agreement with general relativity for planetary motion and redshift, they fail to reproduce gravitational lensing over a broad range of impact parameters. Our results highlight both the usefulness and limitations of pseudo-Newtonian methods in modeling gravitational phenomena. Although the pseudo-Newtonian approach cannot serve as universal substitutes for general relativity, especially in strong-field regimes, it provides valuable semi-analytical insight and pedagogical simplicity. Our results indicate the usefulness of the pseudo-Newtonian approach to uncover more complicated phenomena involved with strong field gravity in possibly modification to general relativity.</summary>\n <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='gr-qc'/>\n <published>2026-02-23T19:00:07Z</published>\n <arxiv:comment>11 pages including 3 (png) figures and 1 table</arxiv:comment>\n <arxiv:primary_category term='gr-qc'/>\n <author>\n <name>Naman Goyal</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Banibrata Mukhopadhyay</name>\n </author>\n <author>\n <name>Ashish Kumar Meena</name>\n </author>\n </entry>"
}