We measured Newton's gravitational constant G using a new torsion balance method. Our technique greatly reduces several sources of uncertainty compared to previous measurements: (1) It is insensitive to anelastic torsion fiber properties; (2) a flat plate pendulum minimizes the sensitivity due to the pendulum density distribution; (3) continuous attractor rotation reduces background noise. We o...

Progress and plans are reported for a program of gravitational physics experiments using cryogenic torsion pendula undergoing large amplitude torsional oscillation. The program includes a UC Irvine project to measure the gravitational constant G and joint UC Irvine– U. Washington projects to test the gravitational inverse square law at a range of about 10 cm and to test the weak equivalence pri...

Multidimensional cosmological models with factorizable geometry and their dimensional reduction to effective four-dimensional theories are analyzed on sensitivity to different scalings. It is shown that a noncorrect gauging of the effective four-dimensional gravitational constant within the dimensional reduction results in a non-correct rescaling of the cosmological constant and the gravexciton...

Evidence is presented which indicates that almost all HCGs are dynamically associated with generally elongated loose groups of galaxies, and are compact cores of the latter. Most of those loose groups, the direction of elongation of which lies at angles close to 45◦ with the line of sight, were revealed by previous investigations. Hence, HCGs have, probably, longer life-times than it has been d...

Higher–dimensional theories imply that some constants, such as the gravitational constant and the strength of the gauge–couplings, are not fundamental constants. Instead they are related to the sizes of the extra–dimensional space, which are moduli fields in the four– dimensional effective theory. We study the cosmological evolution of the moduli fields appearing in brane world scenarios and di...

According to the Brans–Dicke theory, the value of the gravitational constant G which we measure at present is determined by the value of the Brans–Dicke scalar field φ at the end of inflation. However, due to quantum fluctuations of the scalar fields produced during inflation, the gravitational constant G(φ) may take different values in different exponentially large parts of the Universe. We in...

The basic motivation of this work is to attempt to explain the rapid primordial inflation and the observed slow late-time inflation by using the BransDicke theory of gravity. We show that the ratio of these two inflation parameters is proportional to the square root of the Brans-Dicke parameter ω (ω ≫ 1). We also calculate the Hubble parameter H and the time variation of the time dependent Newt...

The quantum state of a wormhole can be represented by a path integral over all asymptotically Euclidean four-geometries and all matter fields which have prescribed values, the arguments of the wave function, on a three-surface S which divides the spacetime manifold into two disconnected parts. The ground-state wave function is picked out by requiring that there be no matter excitations in the a...

We propose the novel method of “gravitational imaging” to detect and quantify luminous and dark-matter substructure in gravitational-lens galaxies. The method utilizes highly-magnified Einstein rings and arcs as sensitive probes of small perturbations in the lens potential (due to the presence of mass substructure), reconstructing the gravitational lens potential non-parametrically. Numerical s...