Experimental Constraints on Strong-Field Relativistic Gravity

摘要

Until now, most experiments have succeeded in testing relativistic gravity only in its extreme weak-field limit. Because pulsars are neutron stars, with surface gravitational potentials GM/(c squared)R approx = 0.2, physical systems including pulsars necessarily involve strong-field conditions. The authors use high-precision timing observations of three pulsars in binary orbits to obtain tight and explicit constraints on the nature of gravity in the strong-field regime. Among these constraints are ones representing the first experimental tests of quasi-stationary strongfield conditions, without mixing of radiative effects.