Parkes observations for project P361 semester 2011APRS

The neutron star-white dwarf relativistic binary PSR J1141-6545 is a unique target for testing General Relativity and its competing alternatives. Our eight years of timing observations have enabled measurements of its orbital decay and Shapiro delay, as well as accurate determination of the two stellar masses. The limits derived from our timing for the strongly non-linear coupling parameter of tensor-scalar theories of gravity are currently the most stringent to date and are expected to improve dramatically over the next few years. In light of these encouraging results and future prospects, we propose to continue regular observations of this pulsar.

中子星-白矮星相对论双星（neutron star-white dwarf relativistic binary）PSR J1141-6545是检验广义相对论（General Relativity）及其竞争替代理论的独特目标。我们八年的计时观测已实现对其轨道衰减和夏皮罗延迟（Shapiro delay）的测量，以及对两颗恒星质量的精确测定。从计时数据中推导得出的张量-标量引力理论（tensor-scalar theories of gravity）强非线性耦合参数的限制，目前是迄今为止最严格的，且预计未来几年将显著改善。鉴于这些令人鼓舞的结果和未来前景，我们提议继续对该脉冲星进行定期观测。