Precessions in Relativity

According to general relativity, a spinning body of mass M and angular momentum S, like a star or a planet, generates a gravitomagnetic field which induces, among other phenomena, also the Lense-Thirring effect, i.e. secular precessions of the path of a test particle orbiting it. Direct and indisputable tests of such a relativistic prediction are still missing. We discuss some performed attempts to measure it in the gravitational fields of several bodies in the Solar System w...

I show that the precession of the orbit of Mercury and the deflection of starlight by the Sun are effects of special relativity alone when the gravitational field of a particle is treated in the same way as the electric field of a charged particle . General relativity is not needed to explain them.

In this paper we study the orbits of massive bodies moving in the spacetime generated by a spherically symmetric and non-rotating distribution of mass. More specifically, our treatment discusses the more accurate calculation of the precession of pericenter due to general-relativistic effects. Our result is accurate up to terms of second order, while the precession met in the bibliography is accurate only up to first-order terms.

E.V. Pitjeva, by processing more than 400,000 planetary observations of various types with the dynamical models of the EPM2006 ephemerides, recently estimated a correction to the canonical Newtonian-Einsteinian Venus' perihelion precession of -0.0004 +/- 0.0001 arcseconds per century. The prediction of general relativity for the Lense-Thirring precession of the perihelion of Venus is -0.0003 arcseconds per century. It turns out that neither other mismodelld/unmodelled standar...

On incorporating special relativity theory into an extended equivalence principle, post-Newtonian gravitational phenomena beyond that originally predicted by Einstein are predicted (required), such as geodetic and gravitomagnetic precessions of local inertial frames, and precession of Mercury's orbital perihelion. Why were not these phenomena predicted in the years 1907-1911? The unique 1/c^2 order dynamical equations for clock rates and motion of both bodies and light in loc...

We present a new measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect on the orbits of the geodetic satellites LAGEOS, LAGEOS II and LARES. This secular precession is a general relativity effect produced by the gravitomagnetic field of the Earth generated by its rotation. The effect is a manifestation of spacetime curvature generated by mass-currents, a peculiarity of Einstein's theory of gravitation. This measurement stands out, compared to previous measurements in the same context, for...

The work is devoted to the critical analysis of theoretical prediction and astronomical observation of GR effects, first of all, the Mercury's perihelion advance. In the first part, the methodological issues of observations are discussed including a practice of observations, a method of recognizing the relativistic properties of the effect and recovering it from bulk of raw data, a parametric observational model, and finally, methods of assessment of the effect value and stat...

In this paper we represent a different approach to the calculation of the perihelion shift than the one presented in common text books. We do not rely on the Schwarzschild metric and the Hamilton Jacobi technique to obtain our results. Instead we use a weak field approximation, with the advantage that we are not obliged to work with a definite static metric and can consider time dependent effects. Our results support the conclusion of Krizek \cite{Krizek} regarding the signif...

Einstein general theory of relativity (GTR) accounted well for the precession of the perihelion of planets and binary pulsars. While the ordinary Newton law of gravitation failed, a generalized version yields similar results. We have shown here that these effects can be accounted for as due to the existence of gravitomagnetism only, and not necessarily due to the curvature of space time. Or alternatively, gravitomagnetism is equivalent to a curved space-time. The precession o...

Action at distance in Newtonian physics is replaced by finite propagation speeds in classical post--Newtonian physics. As a result, the differential equations of motion in Newtonian physics are replaced by functional differential equations, where the delay associated with the finite propagation speed is taken into account. Newtonian equations of motion, with post--Newtonian corrections, are often used to approximate the functional differential equations. In ``On the origin of...