Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009iau...261.0703p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, IAU Symposium #261. Relativity in Fundamental Astronomy: Dynamics, Reference Frames, and Data Ana
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The LISA mission is an interferometer, formed by three spacecraft, that aims at the detection of gravitational waves in the [10-4, 10-1] Hz frequency band. Before the present work, only CLASSICAL ephemerides for LISA satellites were available. Hence, relativistic effects in LISA orbit determination needed to be considered and quantified. We consider here the motion of LISA satellites in the gravitational field of a spherical non-rotating Sun, without planets.
The Relativistic Motion Integrator (RMI) consists in integrating numerically the exact equations of motion (geodesics), for a given metric. The RMI approach can be applied to compute either planetocentric or barycentric orbits for different space missions.
As an application, we consider a relativistic metric which corresponds to a gravitational field at first post-Newtonian order. Indeed, LISA is a relevant example to use RMI together with a BCRS (Barycentric Coordinate Reference System) metric, as recommended by the IAU (International Astronomical Union).
To validate RMI's results for LISA, we used an analytical development (up to first order in the eccentricity e of the orbit and up to first order in GM/c2, where G is Newton's constant, M, the solar mass and c the speed of light in vacuum). We show that RMI's results agree with this analytical development within e2 GM/c2.
We show that a numerical classical model for LISA orbits in the gravitational field of a non-rotating spherical Sun without planets can be wrong, with respect to the relativistic version of the same model, by as much as about ten kilometers in radial distance during a year and up to about 60 kilometer in along track distance after a year... with consequences on estimated photon flight times.
"Relativistic versus Newtonian orbitography: RMI software, illustration with the LISA mission", S. Pireaux, B. Chauvineau, arXiv:0801.3627v1(gr-qc)
Chauvineau Bertrand
Pireaux Sophie M. V.
No associations
LandOfFree
Relativistic Orbit Determination for The Lisa Mission: a Numerical Versus an Analytical Approach does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Relativistic Orbit Determination for The Lisa Mission: a Numerical Versus an Analytical Approach, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Relativistic Orbit Determination for The Lisa Mission: a Numerical Versus an Analytical Approach will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-811859