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Freebirth Toad [soylentnews.org] writes:

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 [doi.org] does not appear to be paywalled.

Original Submission