Frédéric Henry-Couannier
Frédéric Henry-Couannier | |
|---|---|
| Known for | The "Dark Gravity" (Dark Side of Gravity) theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Physics (particle physics, gravitation and cosmology) |
| Institutions | Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille (CPPM) |
Frédéric Henry-Couannier is a French physicist known for developing the "Dark Gravity" (also called the "Dark Side of Gravity") theory, an alternative approach to gravitation based on negative energy states and a globally Minkowskian background metric. He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Work
Henry-Couannier has worked as an experimental particle physicist, appearing among the authors of collaboration papers such as the hadronic calibration of the ATLAS Liquid Argon End-Cap Calorimeter. Alongside this experimental work he has published a series of theoretical papers, several posted to the arXiv preprint server, in which he develops his own gravitational model.
His central proposal, which he calls "Dark Gravity" or the "Dark Side of Gravity", treats gravity in terms of two conjugate metrics and reintroduces negative-energy states within the framework of General Relativity and quantum field theory. He argues that this picture yields testable predictions, and has written papers relating it to observations such as the Pioneer anomaly, Gravity Probe B, the formation of large-scale structure, and an accelerating flat universe. Representative papers include "Negative energies and time reversal in Quantum Field Theory" (2004), "Discrete symmetries and general relativity, the dark side of gravity" (published in the International Journal of Modern Physics A), and "The Dark Side of Gravity" (2006).
His work is closely related to the "twin universe" / two-sided universe ideas of Jean-Pierre Petit, with whom (together with Gilles d'Agostini) he co-authored the 2005 paper "Matter, antimatter and geometry / The twin universe model". These proposals, positing a second gravity and a coexisting opposite-time side of the universe, lie outside the accepted mainstream of gravitational physics and cosmology. Henry-Couannier disseminates the theory, and its claimed consequences and predictions, on his personal site darksideofgravity.com.