Light, delayed: The Shapiro Effect and the Newtonian Limit

Abstract

The Shapiro effect, also known as the gravitational time delay, is close kin to the gravitational deflection of light that was the central topic of our Summer School. It is also an interesting test bed for exploring a topic that provides the foundations for most of the calculations we have done in this school, yet is highly complex when treated more rigorously: the question of the Newtonian limit, and of the post-Newtonian corrections that must be applied to include the leading-order effects of general relativity. This contribution discusses simplified derivations for the gravitational redshift and the Shapiro effect, as well as astrophysical situations in which the Shapiro effect can be measured.

14 pages, 12 figures. Published in: K.-H. Lotze & Silvia Simionato (eds.), Proceedings of the Heraeus Summer School "Astronomy from 4 Perspectives: Thinking Gravitational Lensing for Teaching" (Jena, 2-7 Sep 2019), pp. 42-54

References in corpus (5)

• Shapiro delay measurement of a two solar mass neutron star
• The Confrontation between General Relativity and Experiment
• Tests of general relativity from timing the double pulsar
• The Shapiro time delay and the equivalence principle
• The expanding universe: an introduction