Gravitational Radiation from Compact Binary Pulsars

Abstract

An outstanding question in modern Physics is whether general relativity (GR) is a complete description of gravity among bodies at macroscopic scales. Currently, the best experiments supporting this hypothesis are based on high-precision timing of radio pulsars. This chapter reviews recent advances in the field with a focus on compact binary millisecond pulsars with white-dwarf (WD) companions. These systems - if modeled properly - provide an unparalleled test ground for physically motivated alternatives to GR that deviate significantly in the strong-field regime. Recent improvements in observational techniques and advances in our understanding of WD interiors have enabled a series of precise mass measurements in such systems. These masses, combined with high-precision radio timing of the pulsars, result to stringent constraints on the radiative properties of gravity, qualitatively very different from what was available in the past.

Short review chapter to appear in "Gravitational Wave Astrophysics" by Springer-Verlag, edited by Carlos F. Sopuerta; v3: a few major corrections and updated references. Comments are welcomed

References in corpus (9)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary
• Gravity Probe B: Final Results of a Space Experiment to Test General Relativity
• The ELM Survey. I. A Complete Sample of Extremely Low Mass White Dwarfs
• Measurement of Orbital Decay in the Double Neutron Star Binary PSR B2127+11C
• Gravitational-radiation losses from the pulsar-white-dwarf binary PSR J1141-6545
• New tests of local Lorentz invariance of gravity with small-eccentricity binary pulsars
• Implications of a VLBI Distance to the Double Pulsar J0737-3039A/B
• Precision astrometry of pulsars and other compact radio sources in the globular cluster M15