Precession of Pericenter: A More Accurate Approach

Recently, the secular pericentre precession was analytically computed to the second post-Newtonian (2PN) order by the present author with the Gauss equations in terms of the osculating Keplerian orbital elements in order to obtain closer contact with the observations in astronomical and astrophysical scenarios of potential interest. A discrepancy with previous results by other authors was found. Moreover, some of such findings by the same authors were deemed as mutually incon...

The advance of the pericenter of the orbit of a test body around a massive body in general relativity can be calculated in a number of ways. In one method, one studies the geodesic equation in the exact Schwarzschild geometry and finds the angle between pericenters as an integral of a certain radial function between turning points of the orbit. In another method, one describes the orbit using osculating orbit elements, and analyzes the "Lagrange planetary equations" that give...

An alternative derivation of the first-order relativistic contribution to perihelic precession is presented. Orbital motion in the Schwarzschild geometry is considered in the Keplerian limit, and the orbit equation is derived for approximately elliptical motion. The method of solution makes use of coordinate transformations and the correspondence principle, rather than the standard perturbative approach. The form of the resulting orbit equation is similar to that derived from...

This work studies the periapsis shift in the equatorial plane of arbitrary stationary and axisymmetric spacetimes. Two perturbative methods are systematically developed. The first work for small eccentricity but very general orbit size and the second, which is post-Newtonian and includes two variants, is more accurate for orbits of large size but allows general eccentricity. Results from these methods are shown to be equivalent under small eccentricity and large size limits. ...

We propose a new approach in studying the planetary orbits and the perihelion precession in General Relativity by means of the Homotopy Perturbation Method (HPM).For this purpose, we give a brief review of the nonlinear geodesic equations in the spherical symmetry spacetime which are to be studied in our work. On the basis of the main idea of HPM, we construct the appropriate homotopy what leads to the problem of solving the set of linear equations. First of all, we consider ...

At the second post-Newtonian (2PN) order, the secular pericentre precession $\dot\omega^\mathrm{2PN}$ of either a full two-body system made of well detached non-rotating monopole masses of comparable size and a restricted two-body system composed of a point particle orbiting a fixed central mass have been analytically computed so far with a variety of approaches. We offer our contribution by analytically computing $\dot\omega^\mathrm{2PN}$ in a perturbative way with the metho...

Higher order corrections (up to n-th order) are obtained for the perihelion precession in binary systems like OJ287 using the Schwarzschild metric and complex integration. The corrections are performed considering the third root of the motion equation and developing the expansion in terms of $r_s/\left(a(1-e^2)\right)$.}The results are compared with other expansions that appear in the literature giving corrections to second and third order. Finally, we simulate the shape of r...

A highly precise model for the motion of a rigid Earth is indispensable to reveal the effects of non-rigidity in the rotation of the Earth from observations. To meet the accuracy goal of modern theories of Earth rotation of 1 microarcsecond (muas) it is clear, that for such a model also relativistic effects have to be taken into account. The largest of these effects is the so called geodetic precession. In this paper we will describe this effect and the standard procedure t...

We calculate the perihelion precession delta for nearly circular orbits in a central potential V(r). Differently from other approaches to this problem, we do not assume that the potential is close to the Newtonian one. The main idea in the deduction is to apply the underlying symmetries of the system to show that delta must be a function of r V''(r)/V'(r), and to use the transformation behaviour of delta in a rotating system of reference. This is equivalent to say, that the e...

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...