2008/05/12 by Ernst Fischer, Fischer, Ernst
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0805.1638
7 pages
arxiv created 2008/05/12 · openalex publication_date 2008/05/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Due to Lorentz invariance of General Relativity gravitational interaction is limited to the speed of light. Thus for particles, moving within a matter field, retardation leads to loss of energy by emission of gravitational radiation. This 'gravitomagnetic' effect, applied to motion in homogeneous mass filled space, acts like a viscous force, slowing down every motion in the universe on the Hubble time scale. The energy loss rate exactly equals the red shift of photons in an expanding universe, thus showing the equivalence of wavelength stretching in the wave picture and energy loss in the photon picture. The loss mechanism is not restricted to an expanding universe, however, but would also be present in a static Einstein universe.