Equation 1 · Cosmological Natural Selection: A Theory That Named Its Own Killer
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the orbital phase. Read the equation part by part below; each part has a contextual explanation and a link to its mathematical background.
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The way you weigh a neutron star from a radio telescope, with no direct access to the star at all, is to time its pulses with enough precision to catch general relativity bending them. In a binary system seen close to edge-on, radio pulses from the neutron star are delayed by a few extra microseconds each orbit as they pass close to the companion star, because the companion’s gravity curves the spacetime the pulse crosses. The delay as a function of orbital phase is standardly written
Sources cited in the article section
- [10] A Two-Solar-Mass Neutron Star Measured Using Shapiro Delay ↗
- [11] A Massive Pulsar in a Compact Relativistic Binary ↗
- [12] Relativistic Shapiro Delay Measurements of an Extremely Massive Millisecond Pulsar ↗
- [13] Refined Mass and Geometric Measurements of the High-Mass PSR J0740+6620 ↗
- [15] PSR J0952-0607: The Fastest and Heaviest Known Galactic Neutron Star ↗
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