Preferential Median as a New Estimator for Adjustment of the Newtonian Gravitation Constant Value

The uncertainty of the Newtonian gravitational constantGremains high compared to other fundamental constants. The recommended value ofGis determined by the adjustment procedure of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) working group, which utilizes the traditional least-squares method and the Birge ratio. This approach assumes normality and consistency of the input data, which is not the case for the gravitational constant measurement results. This paper proposes applying the preferential median, determined by the interval fusion with preference aggregation (IF&PA) method, for combining data in the adjustment of the gravitational constant. The preferential median was experimentally investigated using random synthetic data, similar to those employed inGadjustments, to verify its applicability. Then, the real CODATA 2018 adjustment data were processed to get the preferential median estimate ofG. The obtainedGvalue is 6.67426(6) × 10−11m3kg−1s−2with a relative uncertainty 8.9 × 10−6which is about 2.5 times less than that of the CODATA 2018 value.