Searching for radio pulsars orbiting around the Galactic centre black hole (BH), Sagittarius A⋆ (Sgr A⋆), represents a holy grail goal for large-area radio telescopes, in particular for the Square Kilometre Array. Follow-up timing observation of such a PSR-Sgr A⋆ binary system with an orbital period ≲O(1year) will bring forward a handful of new tests on different aspects of fundamental physics that are barely accessible with other means. However, mass perturbation in the Galactic centre harms the gravitational cleanness of PSR-Sgr A⋆ systems. In order to flexibly account for perturbations, a numerical pulsar timing model is gradually being built, which can be used to probe the spacetime around Sgr A⋆ BH and study the nature of dark matter.
@article{arxiv.2508.09931,
title = {Fundamental Physics with Pulsars around Sagittarius A$^\star$},
author = {Lijing Shao and Zexin Hu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.09931},
year = {2026}
}