Related papers: Bounds on the photon mass via the Shapiro effect i…
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…
This paper investigates the use of gravitational time delays of macro-lenses to constrain a possible photon mass. The time delay between the 2 compact images of a source of massive photons is computed. Explicit expressions are given for…
The gravitational time delays of macro-lenses can be used to constrain the rest mass of the photon with high accuracy. Assuming a point-mass $+$ external shear lens model, we prove that an upper limit of the photon mass can be derived…
While the two derivative action of gravitation is specified uniquely, higher derivative operators are also allowed with coefficients that are not specified uniquely by effective field theory. We focus on a four derivative operator in which…
Photon is the fundamental quantum of electromagnetic fields, whose mass, $m_{\gamma}$, should be strictly zero in Maxwell's theory. But not all theories adopt this hypothesis. If the rest mass of the photon is not zero, there will be an…
Equations of light, propagating from quasar to observer on earth, are integrated in the time-dependent gravitational field of the solar system by making use of either retarded or advanced solutions of the Einstein field equations. This…
We derive the equations of motion, the periastron shift, and the gravitational radiation damping for quasicircular compact binaries in a massive variant of the Brans-Dicke theory of gravity. We also study the Shapiro time delay and the…
In the standard model of particle physics, photons are mass-less particles with a particular dispersion relation. Tests of this claim at different scales are both interesting and important. Experiments in territory labs and several…
The photon is the paradigm for a massless particle and current experimental tests set severe upper bounds on its mass. Probing such a small mass, or equivalently large Compton wavelength, is challenging at laboratory scales, but planetary…
We calculate the delay in the propagation of a light signal past a massive body that moves with speed v, under the assumption that the speed of propagation of the gravitational interaction c_g differs from that of light. Using the…
Recently, there has been an interest in inflation and modified gravity with a Weyl term added to the general-relativistic action (N. Derulle, M. Sasaki, Y. Sendouda and A. Youssef, JCAP, 3, 040 (2011)). In this paper we study empirical…
The measurement of the Shapiro time delay in binary pulsar systems with highly inclined orbit can be affected both by the motion of the pulsar's companion because of the finite time it takes a photon to cross the binary, and by the…
Efforts to place limits on deviations from canonical formulations of electromagnetism and gravity have probed length scales increasing dramatically over time.Historically, these studies have passed through three stages: (1) Testing the…
The Particle Data Group gives an upper bound on the photon mass $m < 2 \times 10^{-16}$eV from a laboratory experiment and lists, but does not adopt, an astronomical bound $m < 3 \times 10^{-27}$eV, both of which are based on the plausible…
Pulsars are magnetized rotating compact objects. They spin down due to magnetic dipole radiation and wind emission. If photon has a nonzero mass, the spin down rate would be smaller than the zero mass case. We show that an upper limit of…
A relation between the photon mass, its frequency, $\nu$, and the deflection parameter, $\gamma$, determined by experimentalists (which characterizes the contribution of space curvature to gravitational deflection) is found. This amazing…
Exploring the concept of a massive photon has been an important area in astronomy and physics. If photons have mass, their propagation in nonvacuum space would be affected by both the nonzero mass $m_{\gamma}$ and the presence of a plasma…
As an extension of a previous work in which perihelion advances are considered only and as an attempt to find more stringent constraints on its parameters, we investigate effects on astronomical observation and experiments conducted in the…
Propagation of relativistic particles in the Schwarzschild gravitational field is studied. Particles emitted radially outward with speed at infinity exceeding c/2^0.5 are observed to be accelerated in the gravitational field by a distant…
The photon zero-mass hypothesis has been investigated for a long time using the frequency-dependent time delays of radio emissions from astrophysical sources. However, the search for a rest mass of the photon has been hindered by the…