Gravity being a long-range force, one might a priori expect the universe s global matter distribution to select a preferred rest frame for local gravitational physics. The phenomenology of preferred-frame effects, in the strong-gravitational field context of binary pulsars, is described by two parameters, â₁ and â₂ These parameters vanish identically in general relativity and reduce, in the weak-field limit, to the two parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) parameters α₁ and α₂. We derive a limit of |â₁| < 1.7 x 10⁻⁴ (90% C.L.) using the very low eccentricity binary pulsar PSR J2317+1439, improving by a factor of 3 on previous limits.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Bell et al. (1996) studied this question.