General Post-Newtonian Orbital Effects
From Earth's Satellites to the Galactic Centre

Calculates a wealth of different orbital effects induced by Newtonian, post-Newtonian and alternative gravity models, in full generality.

Lorenzo Iorio (Author)

9781009562874, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 December 2024

298 pages
25 x 17.5 x 2.2 cm, 0.67 kg

'The book is indispensable for libraries catering to graduate students and research workers in this branch of mathematical physics, celestial mechanics and general relativity … Highly recommended.' V. V. Raman, Choice

Orbital motions have always been used to test gravitational theories which, from time to time, have challenged the then-dominant paradigms. This book provides a unified treatment for calculating a wide variety of orbital effects due to general relativity and modified models of gravity, to its first and second post-Newtonian orders, in full generality. It gives explicit results valid for arbitrary orbital configurations and spin axes of the sources, without a priori simplifying assumptions on either the orbital eccentricity or inclination. These general results apply to a range of phenomena, from Earth's artificial satellites to the S-stars orbiting the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre to binary and triple pulsars, exoplanets, and interplanetary probes. Readers will become acquainted with working out a variety of orbital effects other than the time-honoured perihelion precession, designing their own space-based tests, performing effective sensitivity analyses, and assessing realistic error budgets.

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
2. General Calculational Scheme
3. 1pN Gravitoelectric Effects: Mass Monopole(s)
4. 2pN Gravitoelectric Effects: Mass Monopoles
5. 1pN Gravitomagnetic Effects: Spin Dipole(s)
6. 1pN Gravitomagnetic Effects: Spin Octupole
7. Newtonian Effects: Mass Quadrupole(s)
8. 1pN Gravitoelectric Effects: Mass Quadrupole
9. pK Tidal Effects: Distant 3rd Body
10. Modified Models of Gravity: Orbital Precessions
Appendices.

Subject Areas: Atmospheric physics [PHVJ]