Special and General Relativity: and Gravitational Faraday Rotation.

http://phys.org/news/2015-11-proof-einstein-theory-relativity.html

Researcher's work offers more proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity
November 17, 2015

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Albert Einstein
A Florida State University high-performance computing researcher has predicted a physical effect that would help physicists and astronomers provide fresh evidence of the correctness of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Bin Chen, who works at the university's Research Computing Center, describes the yet-to-be-observed effect in the paper "Probing the Gravitational Faraday Rotation Using Quasar X-ray Microlensing," published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

"To be able to test general relativity is of crucial importance to physicists and astronomers," Chen said.

This testing is especially so in regions close to a black hole, according to Chen, because the current evidence for Einstein's general relativity—light bending by the sun, for example—mainly comes from regions where the gravitational field is very weak, or regions far away from a black hole.






Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-11-proof-einstein-theory-relativity.html#jCp

 

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http://www.nature.com/articles/srep16860

Probing the gravitational Faraday rotation using quasar X-ray microlensing

Abstract:
The effect of gravitational Faraday rotation was predicted in the 1950s, but there is currently no practical method for measuring this effect. Measuring this effect is important because it will provide new evidence for correctness of general relativity, in particular, in the strong field limit. We predict that the observed degree and angle of the X-ray polarization of a cosmologically distant quasar microlensed by the random star field in a foreground galaxy or cluster lens vary rapidly and concurrently with flux during caustic-crossing events using the first simulation of quasar X-ray microlensing polarization light curves. Therefore, it is possible to detect gravitational Faraday rotation by monitoring the X-ray polarization of gravitationally microlensed quasars. Detecting this effect will also confirm the strong gravity nature of quasar X-ray emission.

 

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