Astro Seminar Series - VIA ZOOM

Ingrid Stairs obtained her B.Sc. from McGill University and her Ph.D from Princeton studying pulsars, then did

postdoctoral work at Jodrell Bank and Green Bank before joining the faculty at UBC.  She was promoted to Full Professor there in 2012, and has won the CASCA Peter G. Martin Award for Mid-Career Achievement and the Rutherford Medal in Physics from the Royal Society of Canada.  She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the CIFAR Gravity & Extreme University Program.

Talk Title and Abstract

Precision strong-field gravity tests with the double pulsar

The only known double-pulsar system has a number of unique features, including an extremely relativistic 2.5-hour orbit and an orbital inclined nearly edge-on to the line of sight.  Our collaboration has been timing this system for over 16 years with various telescopes and now need to take into account higher-order relativistic effects when modelling and interpreting the data.  The new phenomena observed include relativistic deformation of the orbit and next-to-leading-order effects on the Shapiro delay (retardation) and the aberration (gravitational signal deflection).  It is also necessary to account for the Lense-Thirring effect (relativistic spin-orbit coupling) when interpreting the advance of periastron, leading to a constraint on the equation of state of super-dense matter.  We have achieved the most precise test to date of the general-relativistic quadrupolar decription of gravitational waves, finding agreement with GR at a level of 0.013% with 95% confidence.

Would you like to join this Zoom seminar?  Please email WCA.