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Gravitational redshift of galaxies in clusters as predicted by general relativity

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Abstract

The theoretical framework of cosmology is mainly defined by gravity, of which general relativity is the current model. Recent tests of general relativity within the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) model have found a concordance between predictions and the observations of the growth rate and clustering of the cosmic web1,2. General relativity has not hitherto been tested on cosmological scales independently of the assumptions of the ΛCDM model. Here we report an observation of the gravitational redshift of light coming from galaxies in clusters at the 99 per cent confidence level, based on archival data3. Our measurement agrees with the predictions of general relativity and its modification created to explain cosmic acceleration without the need for dark energy (the f(R) theory4), but is inconsistent with alternative models designed to avoid the presence of dark matter5,6.

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Figure 1: Velocity distributions of galaxies combined from 7,800 SDSS galaxy clusters.
Figure 2: Constraints on gravitational redshift in galaxy clusters.
Figure 3: The measured-to-predicted ratio of the gravitational redshift.

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Acknowledgements

The Dark Cosmology Centre is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. R.W. wishes to thank D. Rapetti, G. Mamon and S. Gottlöber for discussions and suggestions. The mock catalogues of galaxy clusters have been obtained from a simulation performed at the Altix of the LRZ Garching.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark ,

    Radosław Wojtak, Steen H. Hansen & Jens Hjorth

Authors
  1. Radosław Wojtak
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  2. Steen H. Hansen
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  3. Jens Hjorth
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Contributions

R.W. was responsible for the analysis of the velocity distributions and the velocity dispersion profile, predictions for the models of modified gravity, and drafting the manuscript. S.H.H. was responsible for the comparison with the constraints on gravitational redshift on different scales, and writing and commenting on the paper. J.H. conceived the idea of the measurement, and wrote and commented on the paper.

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Correspondence to Radosław Wojtak.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods and Data, additional references and Supplementary Figures 1-4 with legends. (PDF 966 kb)

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Wojtak, R., Hansen, S. & Hjorth, J. Gravitational redshift of galaxies in clusters as predicted by general relativity. Nature 477, 567–569 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10445

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