On tests of general relativity with binary radio pulsars

Abstract

The timing of radio pulsars in binary systems provides a superb testing ground of general relativity. Here we propose a Bayesian approach to carry out these tests, and a relevant efficient numerical implementation, that has several conceptual and practical advantages with respect to traditional methods based on least-square-fits that have been used so far: (i) it accounts for the actual structure of the likelihood function - and it is not predicated on the Laplace approximation which is implicitly built in least-square fits that can potentially bias the inference - (ii) it provides the ratio of the evidences of any two models under consideration as the statistical quantity to compare different theories, and (iii) it allows us to put joint constraints from the monitoring of multiple systems, that can be expressed in terms of ratio of evidences or probability intervals of global (thus not system-dependent) parameters of the theory, if any exists. Our proposed approach optimally exploits the progress in timing of radio pulsars and the increase in the number of observed systems. We demonstrate the power of this framework using simulated data sets that are representative of current observations.

Accepted for publication on MNRAS Letters

References in corpus (14)

• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Tests of general relativity with GW150914
• TEMPO2, a new pulsar timing package. I: Overview
• Tests of general relativity from timing the double pulsar
• Properties of the Binary Black Hole Merger GW150914
• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• Tempo2, a new pulsar timing package. II: The timing model and precision estimates
• The relativistic pulsar-white dwarf binary PSR J1738+0333 II. The most stringent test of scalar-tensor gravity
• Gravitational-radiation losses from the pulsar-white-dwarf binary PSR J1141-6545
• New advances in the Gaussian-process approach to pulsar-timing data analysis
• Strong field effects on binary systems in Einstein-aether theory
• New tests of local Lorentz invariance of gravity with small-eccentricity binary pulsars
• New pulsar limit on local Lorentz invariance violation of gravity in the standard-model extension

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Constraining nonperturbative strong-field effects in scalar-tensor gravity by combining pulsar timing and laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detectors
• Stellar binary black holes in the LISA band: a new class of standard sirens
• New Graviton Mass Bound from Binary Pulsars
• Reduced-order surrogate models for scalar-tensor gravity in the strong field and applications to binary pulsars and GW170817
• Bounding the mass of graviton in a dynamic regime with binary pulsars
• Bounds on graviton mass using weak lensing and SZ effect in galaxy clusters
• Extended reduced-order surrogate models for scalar-tensor gravity in the strong field and applications to binary pulsars and gravitational waves
• Tests of conservation laws in post-Newtonian gravity with binary pulsars
• Tests of General Relativity: A Review