Strong Binary Pulsar Constraints on Lorentz Violation in Gravity

TL;DR

This paper uses binary pulsar observations to place the most stringent constraints yet on Lorentz violation in gravity, confirming Einstein's Lorentz symmetry with high precision.

Contribution

It provides new bounds on Lorentz violation in gravity by analyzing orbital decay in binary pulsars, improving previous constraints significantly.

Findings

No evidence of Lorentz violation observed in pulsar data.

Constraints on Lorentz violation are more stringent than previous tests.

Binary pulsar data confirms Lorentz symmetry in gravity with high accuracy.

Abstract

Binary pulsars are excellent laboratories to test the building blocks of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. One of these is Lorentz symmetry which states that physical phenomena appear the same for all inertially moving observers. We study the effect of violations of Lorentz symmetry in the orbital evolution of binary pulsars and find that it induces a much more rapid decay of the binary's orbital period due to the emission of dipolar radiation. The absence of such behavior in recent observations allows us to place the most stringent constraints on Lorentz violation in gravity, thus verifying one of the cornerstones of Einstein's theory much more accurately than any previous gravitational observation.