Gravitational Redshift
In the theory of general relativity, there is time dilation within a gravitational well. This is known as the gravitational redshift or Einstein Shift. The theoretical derivation of this effect follows from the Schwarzschild solution of the Einstein equations which yields the following formula for redshift associated with a photon traveling in the gravitational field of an uncharged, nonrotating, spherically symmetric mass:
where
- is the gravitational constant,
- is the mass of the object creating the gravitational field,
- is the radial coordinate of the source (which is analogous to the classical distance from the center of the object, but is actually a Schwarzschild coordinate), and
- is the speed of light.
This gravitational redshift result can be derived from the assumptions of special relativity and the equivalence principle; the full theory of general relativity is not required.
The effect is very small but measurable on Earth using the Mössbauer effect and was first observed in the Pound-Rebka experiment. However, it is significant near a black hole, and as an object approaches the event horizon the red shift becomes infinite. It is also the dominant cause of large angular-scale temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation (see Sachs-Wolfe effect).
Read more about this topic: Red Shift, Redshift Formulae