Prospects for probing strong gravity with a pulsar-black hole system

Abstract

The discovery of a pulsar (PSR) in orbit around a black hole (BH) is expected to provide a superb new probe of relativistic gravity and BH properties. Apart from a precise mass measurement for the BH, one could expect a clean verification of the dragging of space-time caused by the BH spin. In order to measure the quadrupole moment of the BH for testing the no-hair theorem of general relativity (GR), one has to hope for a sufficiently massive BH. In this respect, a PSR orbiting the super-massive BH in the center of our Galaxy would be the ultimate laboratory for gravity tests with PSRs. But even for gravity theories that predict the same properties for BHs as GR, a PSR-BH system would constitute an excellent test system, due to the high grade of asymmetry in the strong field properties of these two components. Here we highlight some of the potential gravity tests that one could expect from different PSR-BH systems, utilizing present and future radio telescopes, like FAST and SKA.

Proceedings of IAUS 291 "Neutron Stars and Pulsars: Challenges and Opportunities after 80 years", J. van Leeuwen (ed.); 6 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (4)

• The relativistic pulsar-white dwarf binary PSR J1738+0333 II. The most stringent test of scalar-tensor gravity
• Timing Measurements of the Relativistic Binary Pulsar PSR B1913+16
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Testing General Relativity with Present and Future Astrophysical Observations
• Testing General Relativity with Black Hole-Pulsar Binaries
• Testing the Black Hole No-hair Theorem with Galactic Center Stellar Orbits
• In what sense a neutron star-black hole binary is the holy grail for testing gravity?