English

Bounding the mass of the graviton using binary pulsar observations

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2008-11-26 v2 Astrophysics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

The close agreement between the predictions of dynamical general relativity for the radiated power of a compact binary system and the observed orbital decay of the binary pulsars PSR B1913+16 and PSR B1534+12 allows us to bound the graviton mass to be less than 7.6 x 10^{-20} eV with 90% confidence. This bound is the first to be obtained from dynamic, as opposed to static-field, relativity. The resulting limit on the graviton mass is within two orders of magnitude of that from solar system measurements, and can be expected to improve with further observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0109049,
  title  = {Bounding the mass of the graviton using binary pulsar observations},
  author = {Lee Samuel Finn and Patrick J. Sutton},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0109049},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

16 pages, 1 figure. Added appendix on other choices for mass term