A precise extragalactic test of General Relativity

Thomas Collett; Lindsay Oldham; Russell Smith; Matthew W. Auger; Kyle Westfall; David Bacon; Bob Nichol; Karen Masters; Kazuya Koyama; Remco C. E. Van Den Bosch

doi:10.1126/science.aao2469

A precise extragalactic test of General Relativity

Thomas Collett, Lindsay Oldham, Russell Smith, Matthew W. Auger, Kyle Westfall, David Bacon, Bob Nichol, Karen Masters, Kazuya Koyama, Remco C. E. Van Den Bosch

Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Einstein’s theory of gravity, General Relativity, has been precisely tested on Solar System scales, but the long-range nature of gravity is still poorly constrained. The nearby strong gravitational lens, ESO 325-G004, provides a laboratory to probe the weak-field regime of gravity and measure the spatial curvature generated per unit mass, γ. By reconstructing the observed light profile of the lensed arcs and the observed spatially resolved stellar kinematics with a single self-consistent model, we conclude that γ = 0.97 ± 0.09 at 68% confidence. Our result is consistent with the prediction of 1 from General Relativity and provides a strong extragalactic constraint on the weak-field metric of gravity.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1342-1346
Number of pages	5
Journal	Science
Volume	360
Issue number	6395
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2469
Publication status	Published - 22 Jun 2018

Keywords

RCUK
STFC
ST/N000688/1
ST/P000541/1

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aao2469_CombinedPDF_v8
This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science Vol. 360, Issue 6395, 22 June 2018, doi: 10.1126/science.aao2469 .
Accepted author manuscript (Post-print), 2.34 MB

Cosmological Tests of Gravity
Koyama, K.
European Research Council
1/09/15 → 31/08/20
Project: Research

Cite this

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year = "2018",

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AU - Collett, Thomas

AU - Oldham, Lindsay

AU - Smith, Russell

AU - Auger, Matthew W.

AU - Westfall, Kyle

AU - Bacon, David

AU - Nichol, Bob

AU - Masters, Karen

AU - Koyama, Kazuya

AU - Van Den Bosch, Remco C. E.

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A precise extragalactic test of General Relativity

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Keywords

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Cosmological Tests of Gravity

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