A Survey of Pulsars as Probes of Fundamental Physics: Strong-Field Gravity, Dense Matter, and Planck-Scale Phenomenology
Abstract
Neutron stars observed as pulsars are among the most versatile natural laboratories in physics. Their clock- like rotational stability, strong surface gravity, supranuclear interior densities, broadband pulsed emission, and distribution across the sky allow a single class of object to probe questions that range from the behaviour of matter at extreme density, through the strong-field and radiative regimes of general relativity (GR), to the most ambitious target of all—residual, Planck-scale imprints of a quantum theory of gravity. This survey reviews, at the level of a working researcher, the principal ways in which pulsars test physics beyond the established classical-GR+quantum-field-theory description, organized into five complementary pillars: (i) tests of Lorentz invariance through energy-dependent photon time-of-flight; (ii) the nanohertz gravitational-wave background detected by pulsar timing arrays, with its astrophysical and cosmological interpretations; (iii) strong-field tests of GR with relativistic binary pulsars; (iv) the dense-matter equation of state inferred from neutron-star masses and radii; and (v) searches for stochastic spacetime “foam” through the decoherence and blurring of astrophysical signals. For each pillar we give the governing relations, summarize current best constraints, and state plainly what the method can and cannot deliver. The resulting picture is asymmetric but coherent: pulsars now furnish some of the most precise tests of strong-field…
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