A test of general relativity using the LARES and LAGEOS satellites and a GRACE Earth gravity model

Ciufolini, Ignazio; Paolozzi, Antonio; Pavlis, E. C.; Koenig, Rolf; Ries, John; Gurzadyan, V. G.; Matzner, Richard A.; Penrose, Roger; Sindoni, Giampiero; Paris, Claudio; Khachatryan, H. G.; Mirzoyan, S.

doi:10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-3961-8

Cited by 124 publications

(89 citation statements)

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“…GP-B experiment has also verified the weak equivalence principle for macroscopic rotating bodies to ultraprecision [149]. Recently, Ciufolini et al [150] have used about 3.5 years of laser-range observations of the LARES, LAGEOS, and LAGEOS2 satellites together with the Earth gravity field model GGM05S produced by the space geodesy mission GRACE to measure the Earth's dragging of inertial frames to be 0.994 ± 0.002 ± 0.05 of the general relativity value with 0.002 the 1- formal error and 0.05 their preliminary estimate of systematic error. …”

Section: Lunar Laser Ranging (Llr) Tests Of Relativistic Gravitymentioning

confidence: 79%

Solar-system tests of the relativistic gravity

2017

One Hundred Years of General Relativity

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In 1859, Le Verrier discovered the Mercury perihelion advance anomaly. This anomaly turned out to be the first relativistic-gravity effect observed. During the 157 years to 2016, the precisions and accuracies of laboratory and space experiments, and of astrophysical and cosmological observations on relativistic gravity have been improved by 3-4 orders of magnitude. The improvements have been mainly from optical observations at first followed by radio observations. The achievements for the past 50 years are from radio Doppler tracking and radio ranging together with lunar laser ranging. At the present, the radio observations and lunar laser ranging experiments are similar in the accuracy of testing relativistic gravity. We review and summarize the present status of solar-system tests of relativistic gravity. With planetary laser ranging, spacecraft laser ranging and interferometric laser ranging (laser Doppler ranging) together with the development of drag-free technology, the optical observations will improve the accuracies by another 3-4 orders of magnitude in both the equivalence principle tests and solar-system dynamics tests of relativistic gravity. Clock tests and atomic interferometry tests of relativistic gravity will reach an ever-increasing precision. These will give crucial clues in both experimental and theoretical aspects of gravity, and may lead to answers to some profound issues in gravity and cosmology.

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Section: Lunar Laser Ranging (Llr) Tests Of Relativistic Gravitymentioning

confidence: 79%

Solar-system tests of the relativistic gravity

2017

One Hundred Years of General Relativity

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“…Between 2004 and 2016, frame-dragging was tested in a series of papers with an accuracy between about 10% and 5% using the two LAGEOS satellites [21,22,23,25,24] and the LARES and LAGEOS satellites [26,9]. In 2011, frame-dragging was tested using the Gravity Probe B experiment with an accuracy of about 20% [27].…”

Section: General Relativity Dragging Of Inertial Frames and The Objementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the largest uncertainties in modelling the nodal shift of an Earth satellite are those due to the Earth quadrupole moment, J 2 , and to the next higher degree even zonal harmonic, J 4 . Indeed, thanks to the GRACE determinations of the Earth gravity field and of its variations, the error in modeling the even zonal harmonics of degree strictly higher than four is at the level of a few percent only (see section 3) [25,9,22,34,26].…”

Section: The Lares Lageos Lageos and Grace Satellites And The Methomentioning

confidence: 99%

An improved test of the general relativistic effect of frame-dragging using the LARES and LAGEOS satellites

et al. 2019

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We report the improved test of frame-dragging, an intriguing phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s General Relativity, obtained using 7 years of Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) data of the satellite LARES (ASI, 2012) and 26 years of SLR data of LAGEOS (NASA, 1976) and LAGEOS 2 (ASI and NASA, 1992). We used the static part and temporal variations of the Earth gravity field obtained by the space geodesy mission GRACE (NASA and DLR) and in particular the static Earth’s gravity field model GGM05S augmented by a model for the 7-day temporal variations of the lowest degree Earth spherical harmonics. We used the orbital estimator GEODYN (NASA). We measured frame-dragging to be equal to $$0.9910 \pm 0.02$$0.9910±0.02, where 1 is the theoretical prediction of General Relativity normalized to its frame-dragging value and $$\pm 0.02$$±0.02 is the estimated systematic error due to modelling errors in the orbital perturbations, mainly due to the errors in the Earth’s gravity field determination. Therefore, our measurement confirms the prediction of General Relativity for frame-dragging with a few percent uncertainty.

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“…Another satellite experiment, Gravity Probe B (GPB), was put into orbit in 2004 and verified frame dragging (via a related gyroscope precession effect) with approximately 20% accuracy [12]. Very recently, preliminary analysis of the LARES laser ranged satellite along with the two LAGEOS satellites and latest GRACE results, produced a frame dragging consistent with that predicted by GR, with estimated 5% errors [13]. We summarize the results of that analysis below and then go on to model thermally induced forces on LARES.…”

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confidence: 89%

“…tides, non-gravitational perturbations and other unidentified effects, amount to about 0.03. The combination of all those errors, using the total Root Sum Squared (RSS), provides a value of 5% 1 Note that the analysis described above and reported in [13] solves for thermally generated forces from the data, rather than predicting them from a model. The rest of this paper describes a model for those forces [28].…”

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confidence: 99%

LARES satellite thermal forces and a test of general relativity

Matzner¹,

Nguyen²,

Brooks³

et al. 2016

2016 IEEE Metrology for Aerospace (MetroAeroSpace)

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Abstract-We summarize a laser-ranged satellite test of frame dragging, a prediction of General Relativity, and then concentrate on the estimate of thermal thrust, an important perturbation affecting the accuracy of the test. The frame dragging study analysed 3.5 years of data from the LARES satellite and a longer period of time for the two LAGEOS satellites. Using the gravity field GGM05S obtained via the Grace mission, which measures the Earth's gravitational field, the prediction of General Relativity is confirmed with a 1-σ formal error of 0.002, and a systematic error of 0.05. The result for the value of the frame dragging around the Earth is µ = 0.994, compared to µ = 1 predicted by General Relativity. The thermal force model assumes heat flow from the sun (visual) and from Earth (IR) to the satellite core and to the fused silica reflectors on the satellite, and reradiation into space. For a roughly current epoch (days 1460 − 1580 after launch) we calculate an average along track drag of −0.50pm/sec 2 .I. DRAGGING OF INERTIAL FRAMES In 1918, Lense and Thirring [1] described the framedragging of an orbiting body, in the limiting case valid around Earth of slow rotation of the central body and weak gravitational field:Ω = 2J/(a 3 (1 − e 2 ) 3/2 ). Here Ω, a and e are the longitude of the ascending node, the semimajor axis and the eccentricity of the orbiting body, while J is the angular momentum of the central body. We recall that the orbital plane intersects the equator in two nodes, one of which, the ascending node, is crossed by the orbiting body from southern to northern hemisphere [2]. The Earth satisfies the conditions of "weak gravitational field" and "slowly rotating", so this formula describes the behavior of Earth satellites. This Eastward precession has been observed and measured using the two LAGEOS satellites [3]- [7] and a model of the gravitational field of the Earth provided by the GRACE mission [8], [9], with improving errors to about 10%. (Satellite Laser Ranging allows range measurement with an accuracy that can reach a few millimeters [10].) The LAGEOS tests of frame-dragging were used to set limits on some string theories equivalent to Chern-Simons gravity [11]. Another satellite experiment, Gravity Probe B (GPB), was put into orbit in 2004 and verified frame dragging (via a related gyroscope precession effect) with approximately 20% accuracy [12]. Very recently, preliminary analysis of the LARES laser ranged satellite along with the two LAGEOS satellites and latest GRACE results, produced a frame dragging consistent with that predicted by GR, with estimated 5% errors [13]. We summarize the results of that analysis below and then go on to model thermally induced forces on LARES. LARES is a satellite with a spherical tungsten alloy core which carries 92 cube corner reflectors (CCRs) for laser ranging. II. LARES FRAME-DRAGGING MISSIONThe node shift of an orbiting body is dominated by the classical Newtonian effect due to the axially symmetric components of deviations of the gravity field ...

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A test of general relativity using the LARES and LAGEOS satellites and a GRACE Earth gravity model

Cited by 124 publications

References 48 publications

Solar-system tests of the relativistic gravity

Solar-system tests of the relativistic gravity

An improved test of the general relativistic effect of frame-dragging using the LARES and LAGEOS satellites

LARES satellite thermal forces and a test of general relativity

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