Test of the Gravitational Redshift with Galileo Satellites in an Eccentric Orbit

Abstract

On August 22, 2014, the satellites GSAT-0201 and GSAT-0202 of the European GNSS Galileo were unintentionally launched into eccentric orbits. Unexpectedly, this has become a fortunate scientific opportunity since the onboard hydrogen masers allow for a sensitive test of the redshift predicted by the theory of general relativity. In the present Letter we describe an analysis of approximately three years of data from these satellites including three different clocks. For one of these we determine the test parameter quantifying a potential violation of the combined effects of the gravitational redshift and the relativistic Doppler shift. The uncertainty of our result is reduced by more than a factor 4 as compared to the values of Gravity Probe A obtained in 1976.

6 pages, 3 figures, published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 231102

References in corpus (3)

• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Test of Time Dilation Using Stored Li+ Ions as Clocks at Relativistic Speed
• Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) data analysis

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Redshift in Finsler spacetimes
• The gravitational redshift monitored with RadioAstron from near Earth up to 350,000 km
• Tests of gravity theories with Galactic Center observations
• A HERO for general relativity
• Testing the gravitational redshift with Galileo satellites
• Numerical Modelling of Satellite Downlink Signals in a Finslerian-Perturbed Schwarzschild Spacetime