Testing Einstein's weak equivalence principle with a 0.4-nanosecond giant pulse of the Crab pulsar

Abstract

Einstein's weak equivalence principle (EEP) can be tested through the arrival time delay between photons with different frequencies. Assuming that the arrival time delay is solely caused by the gravitational potential of the Milky Way, we show that a "nano-shot" giant pulse with a time delay between energies corrected for all known effects, e.g. $\Delta t<0.4\mathrm{ns}$, from the Crab pulsar poses a new upper limit on the deviation from EEP, i.e. $\Delta \gamma <(0.6-1.8)\times 10^{-15}$. This result provides the hitherto most stringent constraint on the EEP, improving by at least 2 to 3 orders of magnitude from the previous results based on fast radio bursts.

3 Pages, no figures, published in Physical Review D 94, 101501(R)

References in corpus (5)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• Radio Emission Signatures in the Crab Pulsar
• Giant Radio Pulses from the Crab Pulsar
• A Low Frequency Survey of Giant Pulses from the Crab Pulsar

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Multimessenger tests of the weak equivalence principle from GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterparts
• Test of Weak Equivalence Principle with the multi-band timing of the Crab Pulsar
• Testing the Einstein's equivalence principle with polarized gamma-ray bursts
• Precision Test of the Weak Equivalence Principle from Gamma-Ray Burst Polarization
• Constraints on Equivalence Principle Violation from Gamma Ray Bursts
• Constraining Einstein's Equivalence Principle With Multi-Wavelength Observations of Polarized Blazars
• Constraining Einstein's Equivalence Principle With Multi-Wavelength Polarized astrophysical Sources