Conformal cosmology and the pioneer anomaly

Abstract

We review the fundamental results of a new cosmological model, based on conformal gravity, and apply them to the analysis of the early data of the Pioneer anomaly. We show that our conformal cosmology can naturally explain the anomalous acceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecrafts, in terms of a local blueshift region extending around the solar system and therefore affecting the frequencies of the navigational radio signals exchanged between Earth and the spacecraft. By using our model, we explain the numerical coincidence between the value of the anomalous acceleration and the Hubble constant at the present epoch and also confirm our previous determination of the cosmological parameters γ ∼ 10 -28 cm -1 and δ ∼ 10 -4 10 -5. New Pioneer data are expected to be publicly available in the near future, which might enable more precise evaluations of these parameters. © 2012 Gabriele U. Varieschi.