90 research outputs found
The impact of the new Earth gravity model EIGEN-CG03C on the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with some existing Earth satellites
The impact of the latest combined CHAMP/GRACE/terrestrial measurements Earth
gravity model EIGEN-CG03C on the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with
some linear combinations of the nodes of some of the existing Earth's
artificial satellites is presented. The 1-sigma upper bound of the systematic
error in the node-node LAGEOS-LAGEOS II combination is 3.9% (4% with
EIGEN-GRACE02S, \sim 6% with EIGEN-CG01C and \sim 9% with GGM02S), while it is
1$% for the node-only LAGEOS-LAGEOS II-Ajisai-Jason-1 combination (2% with
EIGEN-GRACE02S, 1.6% with EIGEN-CG01C and 2.7% with GGM02S).Comment: LaTex2e, 7 pages, 16 references, 1 table. It is an update of the
impact of the even zonal harmonics of the geopotential on the Lense-Thirring
effect with the EIGEN-GGM03C Earth gravity model publicly released on May 11
2005. Typos corrected. Reference added. To appear in General Relativity and
Gravitation, March 200
Global monitoring of tropospheric water vapor with GPS radio occultation aboard CHAMP
The paper deals with application of GPS radio occultation (RO) measurements
aboard CHAMP for the retrieval of tropospheric water vapor profiles. The GPS RO
technique provides a powerful tool for atmospheric sounding which requires no
calibration, is not affected by clouds, aerosols or precipitation, and provides
an almost uniform global coverage. We briefly overview data processing and
retrieval of vertical refractivity, temperature and water vapor profiles from
GPS RO observations. CHAMP RO data are available since 2001 with up to 200 high
resolution atmospheric profiles per day. Global validation of CHAMP water vapor
profiles with radiosonde data reveals a bias of about 0.2 g/kg and a standard
deviation of less than 1 g/kg specific humidity in the lower troposphere. We
demonstrate potentials of CHAMP RO retrievals for monitoring the mean
tropospheric water vapor distribution on a global scale.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Will the recently approved LARES mission be able to measure the Lense-Thirring effect at 1%?
After the approval by the Italian Space Agency of the LARES satellite, which
should be launched at the end of 2009 with a VEGA rocket and whose claimed goal
is a about 1% measurement of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic
Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitational field of the spinning Earth, it is
of the utmost importance to reliably assess the total realistic accuracy that
can be reached by such a mission. The observable is a linear combination of the
nodes of the existing LAGEOS and LAGEOS II satellites and of LARES able to
cancel out the impact of the first two even zonal harmonic coefficients of the
multipolar expansion of the classical part of the terrestrial gravitational
potential representing a major source of systematic error. While LAGEOS and
LAGEOS II fly at altitudes of about 6000 km, LARES will be placed at an
altitude of 1450 km. Thus, it will be sensitive to much more even zonals than
LAGEOS and LAGEOS II. Their corrupting impact \delta\mu has been evaluated by
using the standard Kaula's approach up to degree L=70 along with the sigmas of
the covariance matrices of eight different global gravity solutions
(EIGEN-GRACE02S, EIGEN-CG03C, GGM02S, GGM03S, JEM01-RL03B, ITG-Grace02s,
ITG-Grace03, EGM2008) obtained by five institutions (GFZ, CSR, JPL, IGG, NGA)
with different techniques from long data sets of the dedicated GRACE mission.
It turns out \delta\mu about 100-1000% of the Lense-Thirring effect. An
improvement of 2-3 orders of magnitude in the determination of the high degree
even zonals would be required to constrain the bias to about 1-10%.Comment: Latex, 15 pages, 1 table, no figures. Final version matching the
published one in General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG
How to reach a few percent level in determining the Lense-Thirring effect?
In this paper we discuss and compare a node-only LAGEOS-LAGEOS II combination
and a node-only LAGEOS-LAGEOS II-Ajisai-Jason1 combination for the
determination of the Lense-Thirring effect. The new combined EIGEN-CG01C Earth
gravity model has been adopted. The second combination cancels the first three
even zonal harmonics along with their secular variations but introduces the
non-gravitational perturbations of Jason1. The first combination is less
sensitive to the non-conservative forces but is sensitive to the secular
variations of the uncancelled even zonal harmonics of low degree J4 and J6
whose impact grows linearly in time.Comment: Latex2e, 22 pag. 1 table, 2 figures, 45 references. Changes in the
Abstract, Introduction and Conclusions. Discussion on the non-gravitational
perturbations on Ajisai and on the impact of the secular rates of the even
zonal harmonics added. EIGEN-CG01C CHAMP+GRACE+terrestrial
gravimetry/altimetry Earth gravity model used. Reference adde
Conservative evaluation of the uncertainty in the LAGEOS-LAGEOS II Lense-Thirring test
We deal with the test of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic
Lense-Thirring effect currently ongoing in the Earth's gravitational field with
the combined nodes \Omega of the laser-ranged geodetic satellites LAGEOS and
LAGEOS II.
One of the most important source of systematic uncertainty on the orbits of
the LAGEOS satellites, with respect to the Lense-Thirring signature, is the
bias due to the even zonal harmonic coefficients J_L of the multipolar
expansion of the Earth's geopotential which account for the departures from
sphericity of the terrestrial gravitational potential induced by the
centrifugal effects of its diurnal rotation. The issue addressed here is: are
the so far published evaluations of such a systematic error reliable and
realistic? The answer is negative. Indeed, if the difference \Delta J_L among
the even zonals estimated in different global solutions (EIGEN-GRACE02S,
EIGEN-CG03C, GGM02S, GGM03S, ITG-Grace02, ITG-Grace03s, JEM01-RL03B, EGM2008,
AIUB-GRACE01S) is assumed for the uncertainties \delta J_L instead of using
their more or less calibrated covariance sigmas \sigma_{J_L}, it turns out that
the systematic error \delta\mu in the Lense-Thirring measurement is about 3 to
4 times larger than in the evaluations so far published based on the use of the
sigmas of one model at a time separately, amounting up to 37% for the pair
EIGEN-GRACE02S/ITG-Grace03s. The comparison among the other recent GRACE-based
models yields bias as large as about 25-30%. The major discrepancies still
occur for J_4, J_6 and J_8, which are just the zonals the combined
LAGEOS/LAGOES II nodes are most sensitive to.Comment: LaTex, 12 pages, 12 tables, no figures, 64 references. To appear in
Central European Journal of Physics (CEJP
Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Solar System
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.Comment: LaTex, 51 pages, 14 figures, 22 tables. Invited review, to appear in
Astrophysics and Space Science (ApSS). Some uncited references in the text
now correctly quoted. One reference added. A footnote adde
An Assessment of the Systematic Uncertainty in Present and Future Tests of the Lense-Thirring Effect with Satellite Laser Ranging
We deal with the attempts to measure the Lense-Thirring effect with the
Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) technique applied to the existing LAGEOS and
LAGEOS II terrestrial satellites and to the recently approved LARES
spacecraft.The first issue addressed here is: are the so far published
evaluations of the systematic uncertainty induced by the bad knowledge of the
even zonal harmonic coefficients J_L of the multipolar expansion of the Earth's
geopotential reliable and realistic?
Our answer is negative. Indeed, if the differences Delta J_L among the even
zonals estimated in different Earth's gravity field global solutions from the
dedicated GRACE mission are assumed for the uncertainties delta J_L instead of
using their covariance sigmas sigma_JL, it turns out that the systematic
uncertainty \delta\mu in the Lense-Thirring test with the nodes Omega of LAGEOS
and LAGEOS II may be up to 3 to 4 times larger than in the evaluations so far
published () based on the use of the sigmas of one model at a time
separately. The second issue consists of the possibility of using a different
approach in extracting the relativistic signature of interest from the
LAGEOS-type data. The third issue is the possibility of reaching a realistic
total accuracy of 1% with LAGEOS, LAGEOS II and LARES, which should be launched
in November 2009 with a VEGA rocket. While LAGEOS and LAGEOS II fly at
altitudes of about 6000 km, LARES will be likely placed at an altitude of 1450
km. Thus, it will be sensitive to much more even zonals than LAGEOS and LAGEOS
II. Their corrupting impact has been evaluated with the standard Kaula's
approach up to degree L=60 by using Delta J_L and sigma_JL; it turns out that
it may be as large as some tens percent.Comment: LaTex, 19 pages, 1 figure, 12 tables. Invited and refereed
contribution to The ISSI Workshop, 6-10 October 2008, on The Nature of
Gravity Confronting Theory and Experiment in Space To appear in Space Science
Review
Constraining the electric charges of some astronomical bodies in Reissner-Nordstrom spacetimes and generic r^-2-type power-law potentials from orbital motions
We put model-independent, dynamical constraints on the net electric charge Q
of some astronomical and astrophysical objects by assuming that their exterior
spacetimes are described by the Reissner-Nordstroem metric, which induces an
additional potential U_RN \propto Q^2 r^-2. Our results extend to other
hypothetical power-law interactions inducing extra-potentials U_pert = r^-2 as
well (abridged).Comment: LaTex2e, 16 pages, 3 figures, no tables, 128 references. Version
matching the one at press in General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG). arXiv
admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1112.351
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