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arXiv · 2605.01436

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

Massimo Vaglio·Amodio Carleo·Abhimanyu Susobhanan·Enrico Barausse·Bilel Ben Salem·Alessandro Corongiu·Paulo C. C. Freire·Delphine Perrodin
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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.

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Massimo Vaglio, Amodio Carleo, Abhimanyu Susobhanan, Enrico Barausse, Bilel Ben Salem, Alessandro Corongiu, Paulo C. C. Freire, Delphine Perrodin. 2026-05-02. Constraints on Einstein-aether gravity from the precision timing of PSR J1738+0333. https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01436

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