Introduction to general relativity in a setting with comparatively strong gravitational fields. This has become possible thanks to precision observations of binary pulsars. In such a star system, two highly compact neutron stars orbit each other. At least one of them is a pulsar – an astronomical object that emits a tight beam of radiowaves. These beams strike the Earth at very regular intervals, similarly to the way that the rotating beam of a lighthouse means that an observer sees the lighthouse blink, and can be observed as a highly regular series of pulses. General relativity predicts specific deviations from the regularity of these
Bonnor beam Bonnor beam In general relativity, the Bonnor beam is an exact solution which models an infinitely long, straight beam of light. It is an explicit example of a pp-wave spacetime. It is named after William B. Bonnor who first described it. The Bonnor beam is obtained by matching together two regions: On the "cylinder" where they meet, the two regions are required to obey matching conditions stating that the metric tensor and extrinsic curvature tensor must agree. The interior part of the solution is defined by This is a null dust solution and can be interpreted as incoherent electromagnetic radiation.