Astrophysical Tests of Gravity

Gravity theories designed to explain cosmic acceleration have been actively pursued in recent years. In parallel, large-scale cosmological tests have been formulated and some constraints from observations have already been obtained. This talk will focus on a powerful, new arena for astrophysical tests of gravity: galaxies and stars in the nearby universe. We will argue that scalar-tensor gravity theories generically lead to a wide range of observational signatures that are detectable in nearby galaxies. Observational constraints from existing data within 10-100 Mpc will be presented.