A special-relativistic approach to gravitation and its astrophysical consequences

Abstract

In the framework of Rastall's conservative program for the construction of gravitation theory we present a variant of modified classical gravitation theory based on Einstein's energy-mass equivalence principle. We pursue further the special-relativistic arguments and obtain a theory for the static spherically-symmetric gravitation field that is based only on the well-established physical principles and accounts for all experimental tests known in gravitation. Some astrophysical consequences of the modified classical gravitation theory (e.g., the non-existence of black holes, the creation of real particles in a strong gravitation field) are also discussed.