Gravity Probe B Data Analysis

Everitt, C. W. F.; Adams, M.J.; Bencze, W.; Buchman, Sasha; Clarke, Bruce; Conklin, John; DeBra, D.; Dolphin, M.; Heifetz, M.; Hipkins, David; Holmes, Tim; Kolodziejczak, J.; Li, J.; Lipa, J. A.; Lockhart, J. M.; Mester, John; Muhlfelder, B.; Ohshima, Yoshimi; Parkinson, Bradford W.; Salomon, Mark; Silbergleit, A. S.; Solomonik, V.; Ståhl, Kristina; Taber, M.; Turneaure, J. P.; Wang, S.; Worden, P.

doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-1362-3_6

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Such an extraordinary and extremely sophisticated mission, later named Gravity Probe B (GP-B) (Everitt 1974;Everitt et al 2001), consisted of a drag-free, liquid helium-cooled spacecraft moving in a polar, low 7 orbit around the Earth and carrying onboard four superconducting gyroscopes whose GM precessions of 39 milliarcseconds per year (mas yr −1 in the following) should have been detected by Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUID) with an expected accuracy of 1% or better. It took 43 years to be implemented before GP-B was finally launched on 20 April 2004; the science data collection lasted from 27 August 2004 to 29 September 2005, while the data analysis is still ongoing (Conklin et al 2008;Everitt et al 2009). It seems that the final accuracy obtainable will be less than initially expected because of the occurrence of unexpected systematic errors (Muhlfelder et al 2009;Keiser et al 2009;).…”

Section: The Gyroscope Precessionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the solar system

Iorio

Lichtenegger

Ruggiero

et al. 2010

Astrophys Space Sci

191

204

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Recent years have seen increasing efforts to directly measure some aspects of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic interaction in several astronomical scenarios in the solar system. After briefly overviewing the concept of gravitomagnetism from a theoretical point of view, we review the performed or proposed attempts to detect the Lense-Thirring effect affecting the orbital motions of natural and artificial bodies in the gravitational fields of the Sun, Earth, Mars and Jupiter. In particular, we will focus on the evaluation of the impact of several sources of systematic uncertainties of dynamical origin to realistically elucidate the present and future perspectives in directly measuring such an elusive relativistic effect.

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Section: The Gyroscope Precessionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the solar system

Iorio

Lichtenegger

Ruggiero

et al. 2010

Astrophys Space Sci

191

204

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such an extremely complicated mission, later named Gravity Probe B (GP-B) [109,110], consisted of a drag-free, liquid helium-cooled spacecraft moving in a polar, low orbit around the Earth and carrying onboard four superconducting gyroscopes whose GM precessions should have been detected by Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUID) with an expected accuracy of 1% or better. It took 43 years to be implemented since GP-B was finally launched on 20 April 2004; the science data collection lasted from 27 August 2004 to 29 September 2005, while the data analysis is still ongoing [111,112]. It seems that the final accuracy obtainable will be not so good as initially hoped because of the occurrence of unexpected systematic errors [113,114,115].…”

Section: Experimental/observational Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitomagnetism and Gravitational Waves

Iorio¹

2011

TOAAJ

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After extensively reviewing general relativistic gravitomagnetism, both historically and phenomenologically, we review in detail the so-called magnetic components of gravitational waves (GWs), which have to be taken into account in the context of the total response functions of interferometers for GWs propagating from arbitrary directions. Following the more recent approaches of this important issue, the analysis of such magnetic components will be reviewed in both of standard General Theory of Relativity (GTR) and Scalar Tensor Gravity. Thus, we show in detail that such a magnetic component becomes particularly important in the high-frequency portion of the range of ground based interferometers for GWs which arises from the two different theories of gravity. Our reviewed results show that if one neglects the magnetic contribution to the gravitational field of a GW, approximately 15% of the potential observable signal could, in principle, be lost.

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“…Their status is somewhat uncertain, and the realistic evaluation of the accuracy reached in such tests is matter of controversy (Krogh, 2007;Iorio, 2009;Ciufolini et al, 2009;Iorio, 2010) The data analysis (Everitt et al, 2009) of the Gravity Probe B (GP-B) mission (Everitt et al, 2001), aimed to directly measure another GM effect, i.e. the Schiff (1960) precession of the spin of an orbiting gyroscope, in a dedicated spacecraft-based experiment orbiting the Earth, has recently released its final results (Everitt et al, 2011); it was proposed for the first time in 1961 (Fairbank & Schiff, 1961).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitomagnetism and the Earth–Mercury range

Iorio

2011

Advances in Space Research

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We numerically work out the impact of the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect on the Earth-Mercury range | ρ| caused by the gravitomagnetic field of the rotating Sun. The peak-to peak nominal amplitude of the resulting time-varying signal amounts to 1.75 × 10 1 m over a temporal interval ∆t = 2 yr. Future interplanetary laser ranging facilities should reach a cm-level in ranging to Mercury over comparable timescales; for example, the BepiColombo mission, to be launched in 2014, should reach a 4.5 − 10 cm level over 1 − 8 yr. We looked also at other Newtonian (solar quadrupole mass moment, ring of the minor asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Trans-Neptunian Objects) and post-Newtonian (gravitoelectric Schwarzschild solar field) dynamical effects on the Earth-Mercury range. They act as sources of systematic errors for the Lense-Thirring signal which, in turn, if not properly modeled, may bias the recovery of some key parameters of such other dynamical features of motion. Their nominal peak-to-peak amplitudes are as large as 4 × 10 5 m (Schwarzschild), 3 × 10 2 m (Sun's quadrupole), 8 × 10 1 m (Ceres, Pallas, Vesta), 4 m (ring of minor asteroids), 8 × 10 −1 m (Trans-Neptunian Objects). Their temporal patterns are different with respect to that of the gravitomagnetic signal.

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Gravity Probe B Data Analysis

Cited by 7 publications

References 11 publications

Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the solar system

Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the solar system

Gravitomagnetism and Gravitational Waves

Gravitomagnetism and the Earth–Mercury range

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