Testing General Relativistic Predictions with the LAGEOS Satellites
The spacetime around Earth is a good environment in order to perform tests of gravitational theories. According to Einstein’s view of gravitational phenomena, the Earth mass-energy content curves the surrounding spacetime in a peculiar way. This (relatively) quiet dynamical environment enables a goo...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Hindawi Limited
2014-01-01
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| Series: | Advances in High Energy Physics |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/791367 |
| Summary: | The spacetime around Earth is a good environment in order to perform tests of gravitational theories. According to Einstein’s view of gravitational phenomena, the Earth mass-energy content curves the surrounding spacetime in a peculiar way. This (relatively) quiet dynamical environment enables a good reconstruction of geodetic satellites (test masses) orbit, provided that high-quality tracking data are available. This is the case of the LAGEOS satellites, built and launched mainly for geodetic and geodynamical purposes, but equally good for fundamental physics studies.
A review of these studies is presented, focusing on data, models, and analysis strategies. Some recent and less recent results are presented. All of them indicate general relativity theory as a very good description of gravitational phenomena, at least in the studied environment. |
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| ISSN: | 1687-7357 1687-7365 |