Measurement of the solar gravitational deflection of radio waves using geodetic very-long-baseline interferometry data, 1979-1999.
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.
Shapiro
S S
SS
Department of Physics, Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina 27410, USA. sshapiro@guilford.edu
Davis
J L
JL
Lebach
D E
DE
Gregory
J S
JS