Another Approach to Test Gravity around a Black Hole

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to test gravity near black holes using pulsar orbits, incorporating phenomenological parameters linked to matter content, and demonstrates high-precision potential for measuring fluid density and equation of state parameters.

Contribution

It proposes a novel approach to probe deviations from general relativity around black holes by including matter effects through phenomenological parameters.

Findings

Mass density of the fluid can be measured with 0.1% precision.

Equation of state parameters can be precisely determined.

Method complements existing frameworks like PPN for testing gravity.

Abstract

Pulsars orbiting around the black hole at our galactic center provide us a unique testing site for gravity. In this work, we propose an approach to probe the gravity around the black hole introducing two phenomenological parameters which characterize deviation from the vacuum Einstein theory. The two phenomenological parameters are associated with the energy momentum tensor in the framework of the Einstein theory. Therefore, our approach can be regarded as the complement to the parametrized post-Newtonian framework in which phenomenological parameters are introduced for deviation of gravitational theories from general relativity. In our formulation, we take the possibility of existence of a relativistic and exotic matter component into account. Since the pulsars can be regarded as test particles, as the first step, we consider geodesic motion in the system composed of a central black hole and a perfect fluid whose distribution is static and spherically symmetric. It is found that the mass density of the fluid and a parameter of the equation of state can be determined with precision with $0.1\%$ if the density on the pulsar orbit is larger than $10^{-9}~{\rm g/cm^3}$.