Research

Paper

TESTING February 23, 2026

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

arXiv ID: 2602.20261
Provider: ARXIV
Primary Category: gr-qc
Published: 2026-02-23
Fetched: 2026-02-25 06:05

Related papers

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>"
}