Strong lensing in multimessenger astronomy as a test of the equivalence principle

Understand

Standard Shapiro delay-based test of the equivalence principle, which are grounded on the measurement of two arrival times from a unique source but from messengers with different properties, cannot produce a reliable quantitative test of the Einstein equivalence principle.

• Essentially because they are based on the estimation for different messengers of the one-way propagation time between the emission and the observation that is not an observable per se.
• As a consequence, such tests are extremely model dependent, at best.
• In what follows, I argue that the differential arrival times for strongly lensed multimessengers can be used to define a new test of the Einstein equivalence principle that is both well-defined from a relativistic point of view and model independent---because it is entirely based on actual observables.