Testing quantised inertia on proxima centauri

Abstract

The Alpha Centauri system has two close stars Alpha and Beta (A & B) and one much further away: Proxima Centauri. All three stars are co-moving with similar chemistry, which implies they are bound, but the fast orbit of Proxima implies it is gravitationally unbound given the visible mass of A and B. This problem cannot be fixed with the addition of dark matter, which must be uniform on such scales, or adding mass to A and B (their mass is well constrained) or by MoND. A new model for inertia called Quantised Inertia (QI) has been proposed that solves the galaxy rotation problem by reducing the inertia of low-acceleration stars at the galaxies’ edge in a new way, thus keeping them bound without the need for dark matter. It is shown here that if quantised inertia is applied to Proxima Centauri in the same way, it predicts the observed orbital velocity, within the bounds of observational uncertainty, and binds Proxima, without the need for extra mass.