Useful Background Reading on Black Holes

[Chris Hillman]

I propose to collect here some links which may be over the head of most PF users, but which should be invaluable for SA/Ms who feel the need to quickly brush up before addressing some thorny question involving the concept of certain topics related to gtr. In this post,

[size=+3]Useful Background Reading on Black Holes[/size]

[size=+2]Overviews:[/size]

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9801252
Black Holes : A General Introduction
Authors: Jean-Pierre Luminet

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0510072
The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
Authors: Clifford M. Will

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0504086
Was Einstein Right? Testing Relativity at the Centenary
Authors: Clifford M. Will

[size=+2] Selected textbook explanations of geometry of Schwarzschild Geometry:[/size]

Misner, Thorne & Wheeler, Gravitation, chapter 31
Stephani, General Relativity, chapter 22
Schutz, A First Course in General Relatity, chapter 11
Dirac, General Relativity, chapter 19
Carroll, Spacetime and Geometry, section 5.7
De Felice and Clarke, Relavity on Curved Manifolds, section 10.5
Plebanski and Krasinksi, General Relativity and Cosmology, section 14.11
DInverno, Introducing Einstein's Relativity, section 17.2
Ludvigsen, General Relativity, section 13.4
Wald, General Relativity, section 6.4

[size=+2]Reviews of Observational Evidence: [/size]

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701228
Experimental Evidence of Black Holes
Authors: Andreas Mueller

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0506078
Black Holes in Astrophysics
Authors: Ramesh Narayan

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0310692
Evidence for the Black Hole Event Horizon
Authors: Ramesh Narayan

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0306439
Observational evidence for supermassive black hole binaries
Authors: Stefanie Komossa (MPE Garching)

[size=+2]Bibliographies:[/size]

http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.2316
Resource Letter BH-2: Black Holes
Elena Gallo, Don Marolf

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0211084
Resource Letter GrW-1: Gravitational Waves
Authors: Joan M. Centrella

[size=+2]Proposed new tests of strong-field gravitation:[/size]

http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.1677
Testing the general relativistic ''no-hair'' theorems using the galactic center black hole SgrA*
Authors: Clifford M. Will

[size=+2]Reviews of numerical simulations of BH mergers:
[/size]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.5161
The Current Status of Binary Black Hole Simulations in Numerical Relativity
Authors: Ian Hinder

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0410121
The art and science of black hole mergers
Authors: Bernard F. Schutz

[size=+2]Reviews of thermodynamics of black holes:[/size]

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0401160
The entropy of black holes: a primer
Authors: Thibault Damour

[size=+2]
Debunkings of Cranky Claims about Black Holes Which Often Turn Up in PF
[/size]

Note: the claims I have in mind have been made in

• provably incorrect papers published long ago by Abrams (and recently posted to the arXiv by his son),
• provably incorrect arXiv eprints by Antoci, Loinger, Mitra, Leiter & Stanley Robertson, mostly repeating the claims of Abrams
• various web writings by Crothers

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0608033
On singularities, horizons, invariants, and the results of Antoci, Liebscher and Mihich (GRG 38, 15 (2006) and earlier)
Authors: Malcom A. H. MacCallum

Personal letter from MAH to SJC

[PLAIN]http://www.sjcrothers.plasmaresources.com/letter-9.pdf

[/PLAIN]
[size=+1]Warning![/size]
The domain plasmaresources.com is registered to Crothers, and there are scary reasons why SA/Ms should not surf there without having first taken some precautions:

• secure your browser (at the very least, use NoScript in Firefox or Iceweasel; better yet, use wget with a live CD to fetch the file).
• use Tor or another proxy service to hide the IP address of your computer (it is possible to "torify" wget and curl).
• use a malware scanner to examine the file before opening the file with kpdf or another pdf reader (pdfs are currently a major malware vector, and there is good reason to think the website in question may be particularly hazardous).

I wrote out the link using "code" tags rather than "link" so that no-one will click on this by mistake. If you want to know more about the potential hazards of surfing to certain cranksites, please shoot me a PM with your public key.

Plebanski and Krasinski, General Relativity and Cosmology, footnote on p. 175, referring to the translation by Antoci and Liebscher of Schwarzschild's 1916 paper introducting the Schwarzschild vacuum solution, "the editorial note to it [by the translator's] makes incorrect claims about its interpretation"; the "note" is a paper by Antoci and Liebscher which accompanied the translation and which repeats the incorrect claims of Abrams/Antoci/Loinger/Mitra/Crothers/&c. P&K don't bother to justify their remark, whose truth will be obvious to any good student, but this citation lends credibility to my claim that no knowledgeable persons take seriously the mistaken claims of Abrams/Antoci/Loinger/Mitra/Crothers/&c.

Some posts by Steve Carlip (an editor of Classical and Quantum Gravity):
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-10/msg01599.html
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-10/msg01599.html
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-10/msg01717.html

Some posts by Tom Roberts (high-energy physicist then with Fermilab):
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-10/msg01543.html
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-10/msg01660.html
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-10/msg01770.html

Some posts by John Baez (mathematical physicist and expositor extraordinaire):
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2004-08/3482.html
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2004-08/3712.html

Some posts by Ayse H. Bilge (Turkish physicist, has published on gravitation)
http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Bilge_A/0/1/0/all/0/1
http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.relativity/2006-07/msg01175.html[/QUOTE]

 

[Chris Hillman]

Background Reading on Gravitatioanal Waves

Here are some readable review papers dealing with various aspects of gravitational radiation:

[size=+2]Overviews[/size]

• B.S. Sathyaprakash and B.F. Schutz,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.0338
  Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology with Gravitational Waves (2009)
• Bernard F. Schutz, Joan Centrella, Curt Cutler, Scott A. Hughes,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.0100
  Will Einstein Have the Last Word on Gravity? (2009)
• Craig J. Hogan,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.0608
  The New Science of Gravitational Waves (2007)
• Scott A. Hughes,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0210481
  Listening to the Universe with Gravitational-Wave Astronomy (2002)
• B.S. Sathyaprakash,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0012014
  The Gravitational Wave Symphony of the Universe (2001)
• Lee Samuel Finn,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0104042
  LIGO's "Science Reach (2001)
• Bernard F. Schutz,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0003069
  Gravitational Radiation (2000)
• Bernard F. Schutz (Max Planck Institute),
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9911034
  Gravitational Wave Astronomy (1999)
• Kip S. Thorne,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9506086
  Gravitational Waves (1995)

[size=+2] Sources[/size]

• N. Andersson et al.,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0912.0384
  Gravitational waves from neutron stars: Promises and challenges (2009)
• Scott A. Hughes,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.0188
  LISA sources and science (2007)
• Luc Blanchet,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0603038
  Gravitational Radiation from Two-Body Systems (2006)
• Konstantin A. Postnov and Lev R. Yungelson
  http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2006-6/
  The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems (2006)
• Eanna E. Flanagan, Scott A. Hughes,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0501041
  The Basics of Gravitational Wave Theory (2005)
• Scott A. Hughes, Kristen Menou,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0410148
  Golden Binary Gravitational-Wave Sources: Robust Probes of Strong-Field Gravity (2004)
• Curt Cutler, Kip S. Thorne,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0204090
  An Overview of Gravitational-Wave Sources (2002)
• Lee Samuel Finn,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9903107
  Gravitational radiation sources and signatures (1999)
• Lee Samuel Finn,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9907070
  Upper Limits Based on "Loudest" Events (1999)
• Michael Maggiore,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9909001
  Gravitational Wave Experiments and Early Universe Cosmology (1999)
• Luc Blanchet,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9607025
  Gravitational Radiation from Relativistic Sources (1996)

[size=+2]Propagation[/size]

• Luc Blanchet, Sergei Kopeikin, and Gerhard Schaefer,
  http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0008074
  Gravitational Radiation Theory and Light Propagation (2000)

[size=+2]Detectors[/size]

• B.S. Sathyaprakash, Bernard Schutz, Chris Van Den Broeck,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.4151
  Cosmography with the Einstein Telescope (2009)
• Lee Samuel Finn,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.4529
  The Response of Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors (2008)
• LIGO Science Consortium,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.3041
  LIGO: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (2007)
• Matthew J. Benacquista, Lee Samuel Finn, Shane L. Larson, Louis J. Rubbo,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0606089
  Addressing LISA Science Analysis Challenges (2006)
• L.S. Finn, G. Gonzalez, J. Hough, M.F. Huq, S. Mohanty, J. Romano, S. Rowan, P.R. Saulson, K.A. Strain,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9911001
  Toward Gravitational Wave Detection (1999)

[size=+2]Observations[/size]

• Stephen Fairhurst, Gianluca M Guidi, Patrice Hello, John T Whelan, Graham Woan,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.4006
  Current Status of Gravitational-Wave Observations (2009)
• LIGO Science Consortium,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1705
  Einstein@Home Search for Periodic Gravitational Waves in Early S5 LIGO Data (2009)
• LSC,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1654
  Search for Gravitational Wave Ringdowns from Perturbed Black Holes in LIGO S4 Data (2009)
• LSC,
  href="[PLAIN]http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.0020[/URL]
  Search for Gravitational-Wave Bursts in the First Year of the Fifth LIGO Science Run (2009)
• LSC,
  href="[PLAIN]http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0302[/URL]
  Search for Gravitational Waves from Low Mass Binary Coalescences in the First Year of LIGO's S5 Data (2009)
• G S Bisnovatyi-Kogan
  http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0611398
  Binary and Recycled Pulsars: 30 Years after Observational Discovery (2006)
• Clifford M. Will
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0510072
  The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment (2005)
• Gilles Esposito-Farese,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9612039
  Binary-Pulsar Tests of Strong-Field Gravity (1996)

[size=+2]Mathematical Models[/size]

• Jerry Griffiths,
  http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~majbg/jbg/book.html
  Colliding Plane Waves in General Relativity, Oxford Mathematical Monographs, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991

[size=+2]Bibliographies[/size]

• Joan M. Centrella,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0211084
  Resource Letter GrW-1: Gravitational Waves (2002)

[size=+2]Debunking claims that "LIGO has failed" [sic][/size]

• Jonathan Thornburg,
  http://sci.tech-archive.net/Archive/sci.physics.research/2009-07/msg00136.html
  LIGO/Virgo status & estimated detection rates (sci.physis.research post)

 

[Chris Hillman]

BRS: Some Useful Links for SA/Ms. Gravitational Waves. Addendum

Add to Post #2, in the section on "Sources":

• M.Cattani,
  http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.2105
  Gravitational Waves II: Emitting Systems

 

[Chris Hillman]

BRS: Some Useful Links for SA/Ms: Debunking 101

[size=+1]
Classics of debunking:
[/size]

• A much-cited talk by Irving Langmuir on fringe science:
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~ken/Langmuir/langmuir.htm
  [/PLAIN]
• A long profile by John Farrell of various anti-relativity fringe figures, including the late Tom Van Flandern, published in Salon:
  
  http://archive.salon.com/people/feature/2000/07/06/einstein/index.html
• A long profile by Charles Platt of varous anti-gravity fringe figures, including Eugene Podkletnov, published in Wired:
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.03/antigravity_pr.html
  [/PLAIN]
• A thoughtful profile of anti-BH, anti-LHC agitator Otto Roessler (justly famous in math for the Roessler attractor, which I have elsewhere called one of the "icons of chaotic dynamics"), by an anonymous blogger:
  
  [PLAIN]http://refugeesfromthecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/soft-underbelly-of-scientific.html
  [/PLAIN]

[size=+1]
Some skeptical websites:
[/size]

• A good website to which to direct any young student who appears confused about what science is all about:
  
  [PLAIN]http://undsci.berkeley.edu/teaching/misconceptions.php
  [/PLAIN]
  
  http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/misconcep_01
• Offers some useful general comments on fringe science:
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/pscindx.htm
  [/PLAIN]
• A site combatting creationism in the public schools:
  
  [PLAIN]http://ncseweb.org/
  [/PLAIN]
• These websites seem promising at a glance:
  
  [PLAIN]http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1/index.html[/PLAIN] 
  http://www.junkscience.com/

[size=+1]
Blogs which often feature debunking:
[/size]

• Bob Park (Emeritus, Physics, University of Maryland, College Park) has over the years provided brief debunkings of such figures as Randell Mills ("hydrinos", Blacklight Power):
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.bobpark.org/archives.html
  [/PLAIN]
• Mark Chu-Carroll (Google) often debunks math/sci cranks:
  
  http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/

[size=+1]
Beastiaries of the fringe:
[/size]
(if I might so put it)

• The Skeptic's dictionary:
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.skepdic.com
  [/PLAIN]
• A website debunking a large number of cranks from days of yore:
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.crank.net/physics.html
  [/PLAIN]
• A collection of ancient UseNet FAQs concerning some cranks from days of yore:
  
  [PLAIN]http://dev.null.org/psychoceramics/archives/
  [/PLAIN]
• "Alternative science" from Yahoo:
  
  [URL]http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Alternative_Science?skw=Alternative+Science+Index
  [/URL]
• "Alternative physics" from Science Central:
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.sciencecentral.com/category/27077
  [/PLAIN]
• Some anti-relativity figures, as listed by Google (very incomplete!):
  
  [PLAIN]http://www.google.com/Top/Science/Physics/Relativity/Alternative/
  [/PLAIN]

[size=+1]Forums which often feature debunkings:[/size]

• BAUT ATM is probably the best forum to which to direct fringe proponents spotted at PF:
  
  http://www.bautforum.com/against-mainstream/
  Offers them the chance to argue with people who know some relevant science, sometimes a great deal of relevant science.
• Randi's JREF forum also offers regular debunking:
  
  [PLAIN]http://forums.randi.org/forumindex.php
  [/PLAIN]

 

[Chris Hillman]

BRS: Some Useful Links for SA/Ms: the Simon Singh case (through March 2010)

Here are some newspaper articles and op-ed pieces on the Simon Singh case and some recent related cases, beginning with a widely cited editorial from that infamous organ of radical speech, the Wall Street Journal:

• Britain Chills Free Speech
  Libel tourists flock to the U.K. to avoid public scrutiny.
  By SALIL TRIPATHI
  Wall Street Journal Europe.
  
  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124406714025182743.html
• Why are they trying to gag a top British science writer?
  Nick Cohen
  The Guardian, Sunday 31 May 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/31/simon-singh-science
• An intrepid, ragged band of bloggers
  Ben Goldacre
  The Guardian, Wednesday 29 July 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/jul/29/simon-singh-science-chiropractic-litigation
• Chiropractors cause controversy
  Ben Goldacre
  The Guardian, Saturday 17 October 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/17/bad-science-chiropractors
• Banish the libel chill
  Allen Green
  The Guardian, Thursday 15 October 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/oct/15/simon-singh-libel-laws-chiropractic
• US medical firm takes trip to UK courts to sue consultant
  David Leigh
  The Guardian, Tuesday 10 November 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/10/us-firm-sue-uk-consultant
• Foreign media count cost of UK libel laws
  Karen McVeigh
  The Guardian, Monday 9 November 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/britain-libel-laws-foreign-media
• Charities watchdog releases Simon Singh libel campaign complaints
  The Guardian, Tuesday 17 November 2009
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/nov/17/simon-singh-libel-case-british-chiropractic-association-sense-about-science
• Simon Singh in court to appeal against ruling over Guardian article
  Chris Tryhorn and agencies
  The Guardian, Tuesday 23 February 2010
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/23/simon-singh-appeal
• Simon Singh and the silencing of the scientists
  Sarah Boseley
  The Guardian, Thursday 25 February 2010
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/25/simon-singh-silencing-scientists-libel-law
• Furious backlash from Simon Singh libel case puts chiropractors on ropes
  Martin Robbins
  The Guardian, Monday 1 March 2010
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/01/simon-singh-libel-case-chiropractors
• Danish scientist sued by drug firm under British libel laws to counterclaim
  David Leigh
  The Guardian, Tuesday 16 February 2010
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/16/scientist-libel-law-henrik-thomsen
• US drug firm drops libel action against scientist
  David Leigh
  The Guardian, Thursday 18 February 2010
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/18/ge-healthcare-henrik-thomsen-libel

[EDIT: I need to add some links here on recent activity by the Harun Yaya group, and some cases in which fringe supporters made a very determined effort to impersonate on line an academic critic in order to discredit their character.]

For general background reading on the fiendishly complex, almost entirely untested, and rapidly evolving state of international law on blogging and discussion forums:

• Jack of Kent's brief for foreigners on English libel law
  
  [PLAIN]http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2008/08/on-english-libel-law-brief-guide-for.html[/PLAIN]
• discussion of legal rights for bloggers, such as they are, from the EFF (most useful for American bloggers)
  
  http://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal
• Sense About Science, a pro-science organization founded by Simon Singh and others, which may form a legal defense fund for bloggers sued by creatonist organizations, drug companies, and other seeking to silence scientific critics:
  
  http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/
  See in particular this petition, which I urge any academic scientists to consider signing
  
  http://www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/index.php/site/project/333/
• some websites discussing cyberslapp lawsuits, a common tactic of legal intimidation:
  
  http://www.cyberslapp.org/
  [PLAIN]http://www.thefirstamendment.org/antislappresourcecenter.html[/PLAIN]
• a discussion of free speech on-line from the ACLU
  
  http://www.aclu.org/privacy/speech/14943res20031218.html
• a site devoted to the consequences of suppressing journalism, critical speech, &c:
  
  http://www.chillingeffects.org

Full disclosure: I have no financial interest in any of the above websites, but I have donated to some of these organizations, you betcha, and would certainly encourage other SA/Ms to consider doing likewise. The voice you save may be your own.

 

[Chris Hillman]

Background Reading on Gravitatioanal Waves Cont'd)

Please add under Overviews:

Bernard F. Schutz and Franco Ricci
arxiv.org/abs/1005.4735
Gravitational Waves, Sources, and Detectors (2000)

This superb, student-friendly review paper was written in 2000 but has only just been uploaded to the arXiv. Highlights include:

• exercises, including a nice debunking of a common misconception
• thorough treatment of mass quadrupole/octupole and current quadrupole for far fields
• excellent table offering a useful comparision of EM and gravitational radiation

 

[Chris Hillman]

BRS: Useful Background Reading on Tests of Gravitation Theories

[size=+3]Useful Background Reading on Tests of Gravitation Theories[/size]

Note: please see also my Posts #1-2 above for links to review papers, etc., concerning observational evidence regarding black holes and gravitational waves.

[size=+2]Overviews:[/size]

• http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0510072
  The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
  Clifford M. Will
  (2005 update of 2001 review; also available at http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2006-3/ )

[size=+2]Some Alternative Classical Field Theories:[/size]

Note: see also the reviews by Will for citations to essential printed papers not available on-line. The following section just contains on-line reviews or introductions to some theories which I would not consider borderline crank-- but which in some cases are now known to be wrong!-- and which have been discussed by researchers other than the original authors, or which I consider pedagogically useful for some reason. Search on the authors's names for more on-line eprints.

• http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.0868
  Generalized Brans-Dicke theories
  Antonio De Felice and Shinji Tsujikawa
• http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.4928
  f(R) theories
  Antonio De Felice and Shinji Tsujikawa
• http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.3602
  The Tensor-Vector-Scalar theory and its cosmology
  Constantinos Skordis
• http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1547
  Einstein-aether gravity: a status report
  Ted Jacobson
• http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.4209
  Coframe geometry and gravity
  Yakov Itin
• http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.2748
  Theory of gravitation theories: a no-progress report
  Thomas P Sotiriou, Valerio Faraoni, and Stefano Liberati
  (A critique of a proprosed framework for guiding the development of new classical theories of gravitation.)
• http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0612075
  The (pseudo)issue of the conformal frame revisited
  Valerio Faraoni and Shahn Nadeau
  (There are two mathematically distinct formalisms--- called by the overused term "frames"--- for Brans-Dicke scalar-tensor theory. The question of whether or not these are physically equivalent is more subtle than you might expect!)
• http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0611006
  On the Multiple Deaths of Whitehead's Theory of Gravity
  Gary Gibbons and Clifford M. Will
• http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0602054
  Ricci Flow Gravity
  Wolfgang Graf
• http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0509519
  A Primer to Relativistic MOND Theory
  Jacob D. Bekenstein and Robert H. Sanders (Groningen)
• http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9910032
  Relativistic Scalar Gravity: A Laboratory for Numerical Relativity
  Keith Watt and Charles W. Misner

[size=+2]Bibliographies:[/size]

• http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.0296
  Resource Letter PTG-1: Precision Tests of Gravity
  Clifford M. Will

[size=+2]Microeditorial:[/size]

I think there is no question that the research literature in gravitaiton physics clearly show that 2000-2010 saw renewed interest in formulating and testing a new generation of classical gravitation theories. This work has been, I think, largely motivated by two developments:

• observational: the discovery of the apparently "accelerating" Hubble expansion,
• theoretical: some of the enormous body of work on superstring/M-theory, and (to a lesser extent) work on other approaches to a possible quantum theory of gravity, has progressed to the point where it suggests possible "effective field theories" or "classical approximations" of the (yet unknown) quantum theory of gravity.

Some ill-informed PF regulars (but not in the SA area! ) are won't to complain that physicists have not responded to apparent observational anomalies/mysteries, which is of course not true. Their misunderstanding arises in part from simple ignorance of what is really going on in gravitation physics, and in part from a failure to appreciate the fact that real science tends to proceed at an unsteady and uncertain pace, with many missteps and detours.

Or as Clifford Will puts in his PTG-1 review (see item just above, first paragraph, first page):

[Since the 1960s] ...the field of gravitational physics has been transformed into a full partnership between theory and experiment. Tests of general relativity now take place in a wide range of arenas, from the laboratory table top, up the the solar system, to neutron stars and black holes, all the way to the scales of cosmology. And new theoretical ideas, inspired by physics beyond the standard model of elementary particles or by cosmological discoveries such as the acceleration of the universe, are motivating new experiments.

Will's PTG-1 review also contains some very quotable advice for newbie readers of the arXiv (first paragraph, second page):

While there is some initial filtering to keep out the obvious cranks and crackpots, readers should be warned that the articles have not been peer-reviewed before posting. Those papers that are eventually published usually show the publication reference... This is particularly important in the case of alternative theories of gravity, where numerous borderline crank theories still find their way onto the arXiv, but are never published. Caveat emptor.