Colloquium with Michael Kramer, Director at the Max-Planck-Institute for Radio astronomy in Bonn, Germany

Binary radio pulsars are unique laboratories for precision tests of gravity. Their observations allows a variety of tests in strong gravitational fields. The tests have a number of unique features. Apart from being extremely precise, they allow tests that are difficult to conduct with other experiments, e.g. light-propagation in strong gravitational fields or relativistic precession effects. The latter occur because pulsars are spinning tops that move in curved spacetime. They were predicted to be observed by Bob O’Connell, immediately after the discovery of the first binary pulsar. Today, the effects are observed routinely, not only being used for tests of gravity but also for studies of the pulsars themselves.

The talk will provide an overview of the existing experimental verification of geodetic precession and other relativistic effects in radio pulsars.