Benha University

Abdelrahim Ruby Abdelhamid Hassanain

Asst. Lecturer

Faculty of Engineering, Shoubra Surveying Engineering

Sensitivity analysis of gravitational redshift tests using laser time transfer on the Jason-2 Mission

The European Physical Journal C • 2026
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Publication Information
Authors Abdelrahim Ruby, Wen-Bin Shen, Ahmed Shaker, Pengfei Zhang, Kuangchao Wu, Mostafa Ashry & Ziyu Shen
Keywords Gravitational Redshift, General Relativity, Einstein Equivalence Principle, Laser Time Transfer, T2L2 Experiment, Jason-2 Satellite, Atomic Clocks, Optical Time and Frequency Transfer
Journal The European Physical Journal C
Publisher Springer Nature
Volume 86
Issue Not Available
Pages 682
publication.type International
Paper Link Open Link
Supplementary Materials Not Available
Abstract
Space-based atomic clocks provide unique conditions for testing General Relativity (GR) due to their stability in a low-disturbance environment and their exposure to significant variations in gravitational potential. Gravitational redshift (GRS), a direct consequence of the Einstein Equivalence Principle (EEP), causes clocks at different gravitational potentials to experience relative time dilation. Ground-to-space GRS experiments measure frequency shifts arising from differences in gravitational potential through signal exchange between ground and satellite clocks. While past experiments have relied on microwave links for time–frequency comparisons, optical time and frequency transfer has recently emerged as a promising alternative due to its immunity to ionospheric effects, reduced sensitivity to atmospheric delays, higher modulation bandwidth, and improved signal clarity. In this work, we investigate the GRS using ground-to-space observations from the Time Transfer by Laser Link (T2L2) experiment onboard the Jason-2 mission. Relative to the pioneering 1975 University of Maryland experiment, USA, the T2L2 mission achieves over an order-of-magnitude improvement in measurement precision, demonstrating the power of modern optical time transfer techniques. By comparing a ground-based hydrogen maser and a space-based ultra-stable quartz oscillator, with respective stabilities of and at 1000s, over 47 independent T2L2/Jason-2 passes (approximately 12 h total), we obtain a GRS deviation from GR of . These results demonstrate that optical time-transfer links can achieve high-precision tests of GR, underscoring their potential for future space-based optical timing missions.
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