Constraints on Einstein-aether gravity from the precision timing of PSR J1738+0333

TL;DR

This paper uses high-precision pulsar timing data from PSR J1738+0333 to place the most stringent constraints to date on Einstein-aether gravity, a Lorentz-violating extension of General Relativity.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian timing analysis method that accounts for Lorentz violation effects to derive tight bounds on Einstein-aether theory parameters from pulsar data.

Findings

Most stringent strong-field bounds on Einstein-aether coupling constants from a single pulsar.

Bayesian analysis incorporating both conservative and dissipative post-Newtonian corrections.

Constraints derived from combined data from multiple radio telescopes.

Abstract

We constrain Einstein-aether gravity -- a Lorentz-violating extension of General Relativity in which a dynamical, unit timelike vector field selects a preferred frame -- using updated high-precision pulsar timing observations of PSR J1738+0333 from EPTA second Data Release and the NANOGrav 9-year release, in combination with ToAs from Arecibo, Green Bank, Nancay, Parkes, and Westerbork. Our method accounts for both conservative and dissipative first post-Newtonian corrections arising from Lorentz violation; here we apply it to PSR J1738+0333 using the Bayesian timing pipeline Vela to process the full ToA dataset. We sample the joint posterior over binary component masses, post-Keplerian parameters and center-of-mass velocity components, and then apply a resampling scheme to propagate posteriors into robust constraints on the fundamental theory parameters, obtaining the most stringent strong-field bounds on the Einstein-aether coupling constants from a single binary pulsar system to date.