Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 121101 (2004) [4 pages]

Measurement of the Solar Gravitational Deflection of Radio Waves using Geodetic Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Data, 1979–1999

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S. S. Shapiro^1,2,*, J. L. Davis^2,†, D. E. Lebach^2,‡, and J. S. Gregory^1,§
¹Department of Physics, Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410, USA
²Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA

Received 2 November 2003; revised 20 January 2004; published 26 March 2004

We used very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) to measure the deflection by the Sun of radio waves emanating from distant compact radio sources. This bending is characterized in the parametrized post-Newtonian formalism by γ, which is unity in general relativity. Using a large geodetic VLBI data set, we obtained γ=0.9998₃±0.0004₅ (estimated standard error). We found no systematic biases from our analysis of subgroups of data.

URL:

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.121101

DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.121101

PACS:

04.80.Cc, 95.85.Bh

^*Electronic address: sshapiro@guilford.edu

^†Electronic address: jdavis@cfa.harvard.edu

^‡Electronic address: dlebach@cfa.harvard.edu

^§Now serving in AmeriCorps.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 121101 (2004) [4 pages]

Measurement of the Solar Gravitational Deflection of Radio Waves using Geodetic Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Data, 1979–1999