Measurement of the Solar Gravitational Deflection of Radio Waves using Geodetic Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Data, 1979–1999

2004/03/26 by Steven S. Shapiro, J. L. Davis, D. E. Lebach +1 · 310 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Classical mechanics #Deflection (physics) #Formalism (music) #GNSS positioning and interference #General relativity #Geodesy #Geodetic datum #Geology #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Gravitational wave #Interferometry #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Radio wave #Very-long-baseline interferometry

paper · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.92.121101

published in Physical Review Letters 92(12), 121101 (American Physical Society)

openalex publication_date 2004/03/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

We used very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) to measure the deflection by the Sun of radio waves emanating from distant compact radio sources. This bending is characterized in the parametrized post-Newtonian formalism by gamma, which is unity in general relativity. Using a large geodetic VLBI data set, we obtained gamma=0.9998(3)+/-0.0004(5) (estimated standard error). We found no systematic biases from our analysis of subgroups of data.

Citations

• Least-squares frequency analysis of unequally spaced data
• Geodesy by radio interferometry: Effects of atmospheric modeling errors on estimates of baseline length
• A test of general relativity using radio links with the Cassini spacecraft

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