Pulsars as probes of gravity and fundamental physics

TL;DR

Pulsars serve as powerful natural laboratories for testing fundamental physics, including gravity, dense matter, and gravitational waves, through ongoing experiments and recent findings.

Contribution

This paper reviews recent experimental efforts and results using pulsars to test gravity, gravitational waves, and black hole properties.

Findings

Pulsars enable strong-field gravity tests.

Detection of gravitational waves via pulsar timing arrays.

Insights into black hole characteristics from pulsar observations.

Abstract

Radio-loud neutron stars known as pulsars allow a wide range of experimental tests for fundamental physics, ranging from the study of super-dense matter to tests of general relativity and its alternatives. As a result, pulsars provide strong-field tests of gravity, they allow for the direct detection of gravitational waves in a 'pulsar timing array', and they promise the future study of black hole properties. This contribution gives an overview of the on-going experiments and recent results.