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Bounding the graviton mass with binary pulsar observations

Patrick J. Sutton·Lee Samuel Finn
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Abstract

By comparing the observed orbital decay of the binary pulsars PSRB1913+16 and PSRB1534+12 to that predicted by general relativity due to gravitational-wave emission, we are able to bound the mass of the graviton to be less than $7.6\times10^{-20} \text{eV}/c^2$ at 90% confidence. This is the first such bound to be derived from dynamic gravitational fields. It is approximately two orders of magnitude weaker than the static-field bound from solar system observations, and will improve with further observations.

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Patrick J. Sutton, Lee Samuel Finn. 2001-12-10. Bounding the graviton mass with binary pulsar observations. https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381%2F19%2F7%2F318

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