Model-independent comparisons of pulsar timings to scalar–tensor gravity

Observations of pulsar timing provide strong constraints on scalar–tensor theories of gravity, but these constraints are traditionally quoted as limits on the microscopic parameters (like the Brans–Dicke coupling, for example) that govern the strength of scalar–matter couplings at the particle level in particular models. For binary pulsars whose all five post-Keplerian parameters have been measured, we present fits to timing data directly in …