Rotation curves of galaxies cannot be explained in terms of Newtonian gravity on the
basis of the visible matter content; in fact, they become flat in the outer regions, in
contrast to what is expected, and, to explain this peculiar feature, the presence of
dark matter is required. In this context, Newtonian gravity rather than general
relativity is used since, far from the galactic center, the gravitational field is supposed
to be weak and stars are not moving at relativistic speeds. Nonetheless, there are
general relativistic effects without a Newtonian counterpart, such as the
gravitomagnetic effects originating from mass currents, and their impact on galactic
dynamics was recently focused on. Here, we study some suitable low energy limits of
an exact solution of Einstein’s equations, which can be considered as a model for the
galactic dynamics, and investigate the impact of rotation effects on the density
profile.
Keywords
exact solutions, galactic dynamics, general relativity