Parkes observations for project P361 semester 2013OCTS

The neutron star-white dwarf relativistic binary PSR J1141-6545 is an important target for testing General Relativity and its competing alternatives. Our nine years of timing observations have enabled measurements of its orbital decay and Shapiro delay, as well as accurate determination of the two stellar masses. Our earlier limits for the strongly non-linear coupling parameter of tensor-scalar theories of gravity are expected to improve dramatically within the next year, as the pulsar's proper motion estimate can be by then obtained from our ongoing LBA astrometry project. This holds great prospects for conducting further stringent tests of the theories of gravity. We therefore propose to continue regular observations of this pulsar.

中子星-白矮星相对论双星系统PSR J1141-6545是检验广义相对论及其竞争性替代理论的重要观测目标。我们历时九年的计时观测，不仅完成了该系统的轨道衰减与夏皮罗延迟（Shapiro delay）测量，还精准测定了两颗恒星的质量。我们此前对张量-标量引力理论中强非线性耦合参数给出的限制，预计将在未来一年内得到显著改善；届时我们正在推进的LBA天体测量项目将获得该脉冲星的自行参数估算结果。这为开展更为严苛的引力理论检验工作提供了极佳前景，因此我们提议继续对该脉冲星开展常规观测。