Accretion-disk tests of strong-field gravity Created 2026-10-20 Updated 2026-10-20
Radiating material close to a compact object probes relativistic orbital motion, gravitational redshift and light propagation. A thin disk's inferred inner edge can be compared with the predicted innermost stable circular orbit, while iron-line transfer and thermal-continuum fitting probe complementary aspects of the same geometry. Agreement tests a combined spacetime-and-disk model. A black-hole spin measurement made after imposing a Kerr metric is not alone an independent verification of that metric tensor; geometry tests must vary gravitational predictions and astrophysical nuisance parameters together.
The original Pound-Rebka experiment report, using resonant gamma-ray absorption to measure gravitational redshift in a laboratory height difference.
Official publication: journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.4.337
Institutional account: physics.aps.org/story/v16/st1
ASCA: MCG-6-30-15 by NASA HEASARC 2026-10-20
The mission result description reports a broad asymmetric iron K-alpha profile with a low-energy wing relative to the approximately rest energy. It discusses gravitational redshift and the relativistic Doppler effect in a disk model. The page presents the original observational result and its interpretation, rather than establishing that every possible absorption or illumination model is excluded.
Binary-pulsar Einstein delay 2026-10-18
Black-hole reflection spectroscopy 2026-10-20
An inference from radiation reflected by an irradiated accretion disc, including iron-line and continuum features. Doppler effects, gravitational redshift and ray propagation determine its profile. Associating the innermost reflecting radius with the innermost stable circular orbit can constrain spin, conditional on illumination, ionization, abundance, inclination and disk structure.
Cosmological redshift Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The cosmological redshift is the stretching of a freely propagating photon's wavelength between emission at cosmic time and reception at in an FLRW metric. For a comoving observer at each endpoint,Here are emitted and received wavelengths, and are the corresponding frequencies. A positive cosmological redshift means that the scale factor grew while the photon travelled. The name describes a shift toward longer wavelengths; it applies to light beyond the visible range as well.
For a computed example, let the scale factor double from to . An emitted wavelength of becomes , giving . The received frequency is half the emitted frequency. This determines a ratio of spatial rulers, not a recession speed: using as an actual velocity at is unjustified. The wavelength panel in the illustration under Hubble's law shows this doubling.
A short derivation follows successive wave crests along a radial null geodesic in FLRW spacetime. Their source and receiver have fixed comoving coordinates, so each crest traverses the same comoving distance:Shift both endpoint times to the next crest while keeping fixed. To first order in the very short periods , this gives . Locally, wavelength equals the speed of light times the crest period, yielding the displayed cosmological redshift relation. These periods are much shorter than the timescale on which the scale factor changes.
The relation isolates the smooth expansion contribution. An observed redshift can also contain a Doppler effect from source or observer peculiar velocity and a gravitational redshift. See combined kinematic and cosmological redshift for the multiplicative combination of endpoint motion and expansion. Treating every observed redshift as pure cosmological redshift can therefore misassign a nearby source's distance.
The useful insight is that a received wavelength ratio records how much the scale factor changed during the photon's journey. Turning that ratio into a distance requires an expansion history, through the Hubble parameter, and a specified convention such as luminosity distance or proper distance in cosmology; the ratio alone supplies neither.
Face-on frequency shift of a circular Schwarzschild source Created 2026-10-18 Updated 2026-10-20
A source on a timelike circular Schwarzschild geodesic at radius emits light to a static observer at infinity on the orbital symmetry axis. Such a ray has zero conserved axial angular momentum. The locally measured photon energy is the contraction of its four-momentum with the observer's four-velocity. Comparing the emitter with the observer at infinity therefore gives , where , proving the formula.
Equivalently the gravitational redshift factor multiplies the transverse Doppler effect factor measured by a local static observer. For ,The coefficient contains both gravitational and orbital time dilation. It assumes an observer at infinity on the symmetry axis; other viewing directions generally introduce a first-order longitudinal Doppler effect.
Gravitational redshift 2026-10-13
In a static spacetime with , a photon has conserved Killing energy . A static observer with four-velocity measures frequency proportional to . Hence light emitted at one lapse and received at another obeys the displayed ratio. For it gives the weak-field shift . This local clock effect does not require light-ray bending.
An upward photon has lower received frequency when compared with the receiver's local clock: makes the shift negative. The corresponding upper clock runs faster in a comparison using the same static time coordinate. These are reciprocal descriptions of gravitational redshift and gravitational time dilation, not opposite predictions. A locally measured speed of light remains .
Gravitational redshift between static Schwarzschild observers Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
For static observers at radii and , equal Schwarzschild-coordinate time intervals correspond to proper times . Hence
This static-observer relation is a special case of gravitational redshift, not a definition of every gravitational frequency shift.
Hubble's law 2026-10-14
Hubble's law states that the instantaneous rate of change of proper distance in cosmology between comoving observers is proportional to that distance:This is exact for fixed comoving distance in an FLRW metric: differentiating gives . The dot uses cosmic time, and both distances are compared on spatial slices at the same cosmic time. The rate is not a relative velocity measured in a single inertial frame of special relativity. Thus the instantaneous relation is not an exact observed redshift-distance formula. The associated Hubble flow describes the ideal expansion; peculiar velocities describe departures from it.
For nearby sources, the observed redshift approximately satisfieswhen source and observer peculiar velocities are small compared with , additional gravitational redshift is negligible, and the changes in the scale factor and Hubble parameter during light travel are small. Here can be taken as the present proper distance in cosmology; familiar distance conventions agree at leading order in small redshift. Briefly, , while , so cosmological redshift gives . At greater redshift, use an expansion history and an explicit distance convention instead.
Stipulate the illustrative Hubble constant and speed of light . A is a million parsecs. The following are computed examples, not a catalogue of observed galaxies:
- At , and the approximate cosmological redshift is .
- At , and the approximate cosmological redshift is .
- At , and the approximate cosmological redshift is .
The displayed values are exact arithmetic under the stipulated Hubble constant; the cosmological redshift estimates use the nearby approximation and become less accurate as distance grows.
Hubble's law turns a nearby observed redshift into an approximate distance indicator and makes the uniformity of cosmic expansion tangible: twice the proper distance in cosmology means twice the instantaneous separation rate. Recentring the ideal Hubble flow on another comoving observer preserves the same proportionality, as illustrated under scale factor, so recession in every direction does not select a central observer.
In his 1929 PNAS paper, Edwin Hubble presented a relation between the distances and radial velocities of extragalactic objects. His fits gave coefficients of and for 24 individual objects and nine groups respectively, and he used about as a rounded representative value. Those historical fits used the paper's distance estimates; they are distinct from the stipulated modern-scale illustration above. [ref]
https://www.astro.puc.cl/~rparra/tools/PAPERS/hubble_1929.pdf. Hubble (1929), original PNAS paper, pp. 170-171
. Local position invariance Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-20
Local position invariance requires identical local experiments to have the same outcome independently of where and when they are performed. For nongravitational experiments it is part of the Einstein equivalence principle. Comparisons of clocks through gravitational redshift test this principle once the gravitational potential difference is independently specified; they do not by themselves test the whole strong equivalence principle.
Mössbauer effect Created 2026-10-13 Updated 2026-10-18
A nucleus bound in a solid can emit or absorb a photon without exciting lattice vibrations, transferring momentum to the solid as a whole. The resulting recoil energy is negligible compared with the isolated-nucleus recoil, making very narrow resonant emission and absorption lines observable. The Pound-Rebka experiment uses this effect to resolve the small frequency shift from gravitational redshift.
The striking feature is the combination of a large photon energy and a tiny natural linewidth: an atomic nucleus can act as an extraordinarily selective energy filter. The Mössbauer effect supplies a narrow shared emission line and absorption line even when nuclear recoil would separate the corresponding free-nucleus lines. A slow mechanical motion can then tune their overlap through the Doppler effect. The Pound-Rebka experiment is an application to general relativity; the discovery experiment below concerns the recoil-free process itself.
A radial infalling geodesic in Schwarzschild spacetime has and , where . An outward radial null geodesic has fixed retarded time with . Consequently . This factor stretches a short emitted pulse's duration, and its reciprocal multiplies the received frequency at infinity. Near horizon crossing , it becomes , including both gravitational redshift and the emitter's Doppler shift. The local short-pulse approximation requires its emitted duration to be much smaller than .
// Target: general-relativity.bigb
The four contributions have distinct physical origins. The intrinsic photon temperature perturbation is : a local blackbody radiation energy density satisfies , so its first-order fractional perturbation is four times the fractional temperature perturbation. The endpoint cosmological Newtonian potential term is the gravitational redshift between the emitting plasma and the observer; escaping a negative potential well lowers the measured photon energy. Together with the intrinsic contribution it produces the ordinary Sachs-Wolfe effect. The term is the Doppler CMB anisotropy, caused by the plasma's line-of-sight peculiar velocity at last scattering, with the source's direction convention.
Finally, is the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect. A photon passing through a static potential well gains energy on entry and loses it on exit, with no net shift. When the potential evolves while the photon crosses, the two shifts fail to cancel. The factor two is the sum of the temporal and spatial scalar-potential contributions when anisotropic stress is negligible, so the two potentials are equal. The prime is a partial derivative at fixed comoving coordinate; it is not the total derivative along the light ray.
For a low-cosmological redshift galaxy sample, the intrinsic, endpoint-potential and last-scattering Doppler CMB anisotropy terms are localized near , whereas the galaxy density contrast is measured much nearer us. In the Limber approximation their radial kernels have no overlap, so their leading cross correlations vanish. The late Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect samples the same nearby evolving potentials as the galaxies, giving the desired late-time CMB-matter cross correlation. The early Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect near matter-radiation equality is likewise radially separated.
This is the leading linear, separated-kernel description intended here. The primary Cosmic microwave background anisotropy and late density contrast share primordial initial conditions, so their exact large-angle correlation need not be identically zero outside the Limber approximation. Additional secondary effects, such as the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, can also correlate with galaxies in real maps; they are absent from the stipulated linear expression.
There are two first-order effects: an intrinsic temperature change from adiabatic compression, and the gravitational redshift of the emerging photons. Evaluate the excess Newtonian gravitational potential at the boundary of the spherical fluctuation, with the exterior reference potential subtracted:In the weak-field approximation, gravitational time dilation gives . A local emitter's successive wave crests therefore arrive farther apart at a reference observer outside the potential well. Their frequency changes by . Since a redshifted black-body radiation spectrum has its temperature scaled by the same factor as its frequency, the gravitational contribution is
For the intrinsic effect, compare the local scale factor with the unperturbed value at the reference epoch. An equilibrium photon gas has energy density and pressure . For adiabatic compression, the first law of thermodynamics applied to a comoving volume givesThus is constant along this adiabatic process, and the initial intrinsic contribution is . The smaller local expansion associated with the fluctuation leaves its radiation hotter; this is the compression or local expansion-history contribution, distinct from the clock-rate effect on the escaping radiation.
Multiplying the two first-order factors, and cancelling the common subsequent background redshift, givesFor the overdense region produced by adiabatic compression, , so the final term is positive. It competes with the negative gravitational redshift term. Their sum is the intrinsic-plus-endpoint part of the Sachs-Wolfe combination; computing a full observed Cosmic microwave background anisotropy can also require Doppler CMB anisotropy and the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect.[ref]
Cosmology by David Tong. Sections 3.4 and 3.4.1, equations (3.210)–(3.212): adiabatic temperature perturbations and gravitational redshift contributions
Past exam of the mathematical physics course of the University of Oxford 2007 B 8 i Solution 2026-10-31
Write and restore for the numerical estimate. A stationary clock at radius has . Let radii and denote the upper and lower computers. The metric is stationary and the same two fixed spatial points exchange both signals, so each signal has the same coordinate propagation time. Therefore the interval between reception events equals the interval between emission events in coordinate time: the common delay cancels.
For upper proper running time , the lower computer has run forIn the weak gravitational field near Earth's surface, andThe lower clock runs more slowly, so its remaining work isThus about 660 micro-operations remain; the proper-time shortfall is only about seconds.
Successful comparison tests the gravitational dependence of stationary proper-clock rates, specifically the radial variation of and its weak-field gravitational redshift prediction, assuming the computers execute equally per unit proper time. It also checks that this clock effect is independent of the chosen physical clock mechanism. It does not separately verify the Schwarzschild radial metric coefficient: although light propagation uses the null metric, the identical start and finish propagation delays cancel from this particular observable. This is Gravitational redshift measured by a computation counter.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 72 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The Pound-Rebka experiment measures a small gravitational redshift by comparing nuclear emission and resonant absorption at different heights in Earth's field. The transition of iron-57 supplies the gamma-ray frequency standard. The Mössbauer effect permits recoil-free emission and absorption by nuclei bound in solids, giving a sufficiently narrow resonance. A source and absorber separated vertically by about have a predicted fractional frequency difference of order . A calibrated Doppler effect from slow source motion measures the shift through its effect on resonant absorption. Interchanging the upper and lower arrangements reverses the gravitational contribution and helps separate it from intrinsic source-absorber offsets; temperature-dependent frequency shifts must also be controlled. The observed change agrees with the weak-field prediction.
The prediction follows either from an accelerating laboratory and the equivalence principle, or directly from a static metric. With , write . The time-translation Killing vector field gives a conserved photon energy , while a static observer has four-velocity and measures . ThusFor an upward ray over height , ; downward propagation has the opposite sign. The equivalent compensating Doppler speed has magnitude , about for this baseline. Identical clocks at rest have , so a clock at higher potential runs faster relative to the common static coordinate time. This does not mean that the nuclear transition changes its locally measured frequency with height: the comparison involves transporting a photon between different local proper-time standards.
The weak equivalence principle asserts universal free fall for test bodies. The Einstein equivalence principle adds local Lorentz invariance and local position invariance for nongravitational experiments in a freely falling laboratory. The redshift comparison tests the clock aspect of local position invariance and supports a metric description of gravity. The strong equivalence principle extends these requirements to self-gravitating bodies and local gravitational experiments, including the contribution of gravitational binding energy. Their outcomes should be independent of the external location and motion of a freely falling laboratory when tidal effects are negligible. A nuclear redshift experiment is therefore not a test of the whole strong equivalence principle, and its success does not uniquely establish the gravitational field equations.
The geometrical realization uses the Levi-Civita connection of a spacetime metric. At any event, normal coordinates make and the Christoffel symbols vanish. Freely falling test particles follow geodesics; local nongravitational equations take their special-relativistic form at that event. The Riemann curvature tensor need not vanish, so finite laboratories can measure tidal geodesic deviation. The strong principle concerns removing a uniform external gravitational field locally, not removing curvature throughout an extended region.
For a perfect fluid, local rest-frame isotropy and the absence of heat flux or viscosity give , where is rest-frame energy density. With the PDF's signature , and projects spatially. Its covariant form isThe pressure sign follows from the negative spatial metric; it gives positive diagonal stresses in the rest frame. Local stress-energy conservation, , produces the two projectionsThe first is the energy equation, including pressure work; the second is the relativistic Euler equation. Its rest-frame spatial pressure force is .
Further assumptions are needed to derive the Einstein field equations. Take a local generally covariant metric equation, linear in curvature and of second differential order, and demand compatibility with stress-energy conservation. The available rank-two tensors are , and a constant multiple of . Defining , the contracted Bianchi identity gives . Hence the combination is identically divergence-free only when . This determines the Einstein tensor ; a cosmological constant term remains allowed.
The coupling sign must be matched to the actual curvature convention. Here represents , and a static weak field has . With negligible pressure and cosmological term, a trial equation implies . Comparing with the Poisson equation fixes . Thus the Einstein equation in the sequential-derivative curvature convention isEquivalently, , with . Pressure therefore gravitates as well as supplying a material force. The cosmological constant is not fixed by the local Newtonian matching.
Setting for the action normalization, the same metric equation follows from the Einstein-Hilbert action , where , together with a matter action obeying . After the metric boundary term is removed or supplied separately, the bulk variation is proportional to . This also makes the sign convention explicit. General covariance, the field equation and the contracted Bianchi identity are mutually consistent with the fluid conservation laws. The experiment motivates the local metric description; the curvature and conservation assumptions, plus the Newtonian limit, supply the additional route to the field equation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2002 iii Paper 75 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use Newtonian gauge with scalar metric perturbationsLet point from the observer toward the emitter, , and evaluate the unperturbed ray at . In the sudden-decoupling approximation the Sachs-Wolfe effect and its linear companions giveHere is the intrinsic photon monopole; is the emission gravitational redshift; the velocity term is the Doppler CMB anisotropy of the baryon-photon plasma; and the integral is the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect from evolving potentials during travel. The last two local terms are an observer monopole and dipole, removed when discussing the higher measured multipoles. Changing the direction convention reverses both velocity signs. A finite cosmological visibility function replaces the sharp emission surface by a weighted source integral.
For scale-invariant primordial potentials, is constant before transfer effects. In matter domination, the adiabatic superhorizon relation is , so the observable Sachs-Wolfe combination is . Its amplitude per logarithmic scale is therefore approximately independent of angle. In a flat geometry and , and projection gives the Sachs-Wolfe plateauBoth the intrinsic and gravitational emission terms have this leading large-angle scaling; they must be combined, not treated as unrelated random sources.
The Euler equation gives for the growing large-scale matter mode. Thus the Doppler amplitude grows roughly as relative to the large-scale potential amplitude, while its logarithmic power grows as , until acoustic dynamics and damping invalidate that simple estimate. On subhorizon pressureless scales the Poisson equation gives : the corresponding density amplitude has the often-used scaling. This is a matter-density estimate, not a universal small-angle photon-temperature law; the actual intrinsic photon source undergoes the oscillations in part(b). On superhorizon scales it instead has the constant-potential behavior just described.
The integrated source vanishes for constant linear potentials in pure matter domination. Potential decay during radiation domination or late accelerated expansion makes it nonzero. Its broad, slowly evolving sources favor large angular scales and give a potential-sized contribution there; crossings of many structures cancel progressively on small scales. Scale invariance alone fixes no universal power of angle for the integrated term: its time evolution and transfer functions are also required. Consequently the large-angle plateau, velocity-gradient enhancement and subhorizon density-gradient estimate describe distinct physical regimes, rather than one extrapolated power law across the whole spectrum.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 74 1 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For a radial null geodesic, the FLRW metric givesTwo successive wave crests traverse the same comoving path between comoving observers. Subtracting their path integrals, to first order in their short emission and reception periods, gives . Since cosmic time is each observer's proper time and the frequency is the reciprocal period,This neglects peculiar velocities and local gravitational redshift contributions.
For B's light passing through A on its way to Earth, with the comparison event at A being that passage, cosmological redshift factors multiply:This is the intended numerical answer with that reception-event specification. The reception-event dependence of intergalactic redshift is essential: Earth's two redshifts by themselves neither specify the A–B separation nor identify the emission event at B whose light A receives at a chosen time. For arbitrary directions or a different reception time at A, the general answer is , with the emission time fixed by the A–B null geodesic; it cannot be deduced from the two supplied numbers alone.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2006 iii Paper 61 2 b Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
For a photon, and the null displacement along the ray is parallel to . Consequently , and the first term of the momentum law vanishes. Write with an appropriate path parameter. ThenFor a static potential, a photon emitted and received by laboratories at rest in the background frame has energy proportional to . Using , the scalar-force gravitational redshift isRestoring , the leading fractional shift is , where is the dimensional Newtonian gravitational potential. Near Earth's surface, an upward displacement has , hence : the receiver sees a redshift.
Thus yes: the predicted weak-field frequency shift agrees with the Pound-Rebka experiment. The calculation concerns stationary emitter and receiver, with identical local transition-energy standards; it does not add a Doppler shift due to their relative motion. Agreement with this gravitational redshift measurement alone does not establish the tensor theory of general relativity.
