Back to Search
Start Over
Milky Way Accelerometry via Millisecond Pulsar Timing.
- Source :
-
Physical Review Letters . 4/16/2021, Vol. 126 Issue 15, p1-1. 1p. - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- The temporal stability of millisecond pulsars is remarkable, rivaling even some terrestrial atomic clocks at long timescales. Using this property, we show that millisecond pulsars distributed in the galactic neighborhood form an ensemble of accelerometers from which we can directly extract the local galactic acceleration. From pulsar spin period measurements, we demonstrate acceleration sensitivity with about 1σ precision using 117 pulsars. We also present a complementary analysis using orbital periods of 13 binary pulsar systems that eliminates the systematics associated with pulsar braking and results in a local acceleration of (1.7±0.5)×10-10 m/s² in good agreement with expectations. This work is a first step toward dynamically measuring acceleration gradients that will eventually inform us about the dark matter density distribution in the Milky Way galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *BINARY pulsars
*MILKY Way
*PULSARS
*ACCELEROMETRY
*ATOMIC clocks
*DARK matter
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00319007
- Volume :
- 126
- Issue :
- 15
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Physical Review Letters
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 149954236
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.141103