Tezpur Univ study reveals new insights on gravity inside the Sun | Guwahati News

Guwahati: A study by the department of physics at Tezpur University (TU) reported new findings on how gravity works inside the Sun where the key mechanism of energy production is thermonuclear hydrogen-helium fusion reactions.The Sun contains about 99.86% of the total mass of the solar system. Solar gravity mechanically governs the global structure of the solar system. Traditional theories of the Sun and its stability dynamics are mainly based on Newtonian gravity formalism. It describes ‘gravity’ as a fundamental, classical, and attractive force acting between 2 masses (in flat spacetime) instantaneously. In contrast, Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld (EiBI) gravity provides a powerful, realistic, and smooth gravity formalism (in curved spacetime).The research work, titled ‘Stability and Wave Dynamics in Polytropic Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld (EiBI) Gravitating Solar Plasmas’, was recently published in Physical Review E by the American Physical Society. The authors said, “Our results show that even small corrections to gravity can have measurable effects on how the Sun’s interior oscillates and transports energy. The close match between theory and observation makes this study particularly exciting, considering SDO/HMI Doppler velocity observations, in particular.”The current study was jointly carried out by Pralay Kumar Karmakar, a professor of the department of physics, and Souvik Das, a senior research fellow at the department of physics of Tezpur University. Project supervisor Prof. Karmakar said, “This work clearly demonstrates that the Sun itself can be used as a natural plasma laboratory to test modified theories of gravity beyond Einstein’s framework. Helioseismology offers a powerful new window into fundamental physics operating therein.