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posted by CoolHand on Friday November 20 2015, @10:05PM   Printer-friendly
from the relatively-harmless dept.

From the press release:

A Florida State University high-performance computing researcher has predicted a physical effect that would help physicists and astronomers provide fresh evidence of the correctness of Einstein's general theory of relativity. … The gravitational Faraday effect, first predicted in the 1950s, theorizes that when linearly polarized light travels close to a spinning black hole, the orientation of its polarization rotates according to Einstein's theory of general relativity. Currently, there is no practical way to detect gravitational Faraday rotation. …

"Astronomers have recently found strong evidence showing that quasar X-ray emissions originate from regions very close to supermassive black holes, which are believed to reside at the center of many galaxies," Chen said. "Gravitational Faraday rotation should leave its fingerprints on such compact regions close to a black hole. Specifically, the observed X-ray polarization of a gravitationally microlensed quasar should vary rapidly with time if the gravitational Faraday effect indeed exists," he said. …

If detected, Chen's effect—a derivative of the gravitational Faraday effect—would provide strong evidence of the correctness of Einstein's general relativity theory in the "strong-field regime," or an environment in close proximity to a black hole.

The paper does not appear to be paywalled.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:22PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:22PM (#266002)

    Same AC. Are there any proposed experiments along these lines? GR needs to be tested experimentally in gravitational fields corresponding to accelerations of ~ 10^-10 m/s^2, I assume that means in outer space.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:36PM (#266007)
    Ah, someone who wants to see vindication for MOND huh? Sorry, but I think Occam's Razor cuts deeper against MOND than it does against dark matter [discovermagazine.com]. MOND and TeVeS look more like deferents and epicycles compared to dark matter to me.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 20 2015, @11:43PM (#266011)

      Original AC.

      I don't understand why you would be against collecting experimental evidence regarding GR at low accelerations... That is where observations fail to fit theory.

      Also, in it's current form the dark matter explanation requires uniquely shaped spheroids of invisible matter surrounding every galaxy. I do not think you can get more similar to epicycles than that, which is my primary philosophical objection.