Precessions in Relativity

Among all the theories proposed to explain the 'anomalous' perihelion precession of Mercury's orbit announced in 1859 by Le Verrier, the general theory of relativity proposed by Einstein in November 1915, alone could calculate Mercury's 'anomalous' precession with a precision demanded by observational accuracy. Since Mercury's precession was a directly derived result of the full general theory, it was viewed by Einstein as the most critical test of general relativity, amongst...

We point out the existence of a new general relativistic contribution to the perihelion advance of Mercury that, while smaller than the contributions arising from the solar quadrupole moment and angular momentum, is 100 times larger than the second-post-Newtonian contribution. It arises in part from relativistic "cross-terms" in the post-Newtonian equations of motion between Mercury's interaction with the Sun and with the other planets, and in part from an interaction between...

General relativistic effects in astrophyiscal systems have been detected thanks to accurate astrometric measurements. We outline some keystones of astrometry such as stellar aberration (argument development during the years 1727-1872); Mercury's perihelion precession (1845-1916); solar disk oblateness (1966-2001); relativistic light deflection (1916-1919); lunar geodetic precession (1916-1988); Lense-Thirring and Pugh-Schiff precessions (1917-1959), finally presenting the iss...

The Lense-Thirring precession of the longitude of perihelion of Mercury, as predicted by general relativity by using the value of the Sun's angular momentum S = 190 x 10^39 kg m^2 s^-1 from helioseismology, is -2.0 milliarcseconds per century, computed in a celestial equatorial reference frame. It disagrees at 4-{\sigma} level with the correction 0.4 +/- 0.6 milliarcseconds per century to the standard Newtonian/Einsteinian precession, provided that the latter is to be entirel...

Gravitational Thomas Precession (GTP) is the name given to Thomas Precession when the acceleration is caused by a gravitational force field. The contributio n of the GTP to the the anomalous perihelion advance of the orbit of Mercury is here estimated at $\dot{\tilde{\bf\omega}}_{GTP} = 21\cdot49 [ 1 + \frac{(\vec L \cdot \vec S)}{L^{2}} ] {arcsec/century} $,where $ \vec L $ and $ \vec S $ respectively represents the orbital angular momentum and the spin angular momentum of M...

A very famous ``test'' of the General Theory of Relativity (GTR) is the advance of Mercury's perihelion (and of other planets too). To be more precise, this is not a prediction of General Relativity, since the anomaly was known in the XIXth century, but no consistent explanation had been found yet at the time GTR was elaborated. Einstein came up with a solution to the problem in 1914. In the case of Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, the effect is more pronounced than ...

We present a new simple relativistic model for planetary motion describing accurately the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury and its origin. The model is based on transforming Newton's classical equation for planetary motion from absolute to real spacetime influenced by the gravitational potential and introducing the concept of influenced direction.

Using the Einstein gravitation theory (EGT), we analyze the Lense Thirring (LT) and the Geodetic effects. In the LT effect the angular orbital momentum L and the perigeo of a particle, orbiting a sphere with mass M and spin J around an axis passing by its center of mass, precess around J. In the Geodetic effect the spin S of a gyroscope orbiting M precess around its orbital angular momentum L and the spin of J of M. The theoretical predictions are compared with the experiment...

Gravitational Thomas Precession (GTP) is the name given to the Thomas Precession when the acceleration is caused by a gravitational force field. In continuation of our discussion on the idea of a GTP, in this note by way of considering the motion of a planet around the Sun, the GTP is shown to be a gravitomagnetic effect that a planet might experience while moving through a gravitational field (say that of the Sun). The contribution of the GTP to the perihelion advance of Mer...

Newtonian gravity and special relativity combine to produce a gravitomagnetic precession of an orbiting gyroscope that is one fourth as large as predicted by General Relativity. The geodetic effect is the same in both cases.