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.
@article{arxiv.1812.09161,
title = {Test of the Gravitational Redshift with Galileo Satellites in an Eccentric Orbit},
author = {Sven Herrmann and Felix Finke and Martin Lülf and Olga Kichakova and Dirk Puetzfeld and Daniela Knickmann and Meike List and Benny Rievers and Gabriele Giorgi and Christoph Günther and Hansjörg Dittus and Roberto Prieto-Cerdeira and Florian Dilssner and Francisco Gonzalez and Erik Schönemann and Javier Ventura-Traveset and Claus Lämmerzahl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.09161},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
6 pages, 3 figures, published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 231102