2022/03/12 by Abraham Loeb, Loeb, Abraham
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR) #Space Technology and Applications #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2203.06461
openalex publication_date 2022/03/12 · openalex created_date 2022/04/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Doppler effect is commonly used to infer the velocity difference between stars based on the relative shifts in the rest-frame wavelengths of their spectral features. In wide binaries, the difference in gravitational redshift from the surfaces of the constituent stars with distinct compactness dominates at separations above 0.01 pc. I suggest that this effect became apparent for wide pairs in the Gaia eDR3 catalogue but incorrectly interpreted as a possible modification of Newtonian gravity in the internal kinematics of very wide binaries.