5,885 research outputs found
Beyond Gravitoelectromagnetism: Critical Speed in Gravitational Motion
A null ray approaching a distant astronomical source appears to slow down,
while a massive particle speeds up in accordance with Newtonian gravitation.
The integration of these apparently incompatible aspects of motion in general
relativity is due to the existence of a critical speed. Dynamics of particles
moving faster than the critical speed could then be contrary to Newtonian
expectations. Working within the framework of gravitoelectromagnetism, the
implications of the existence of a critical speed are explored. The results are
expected to be significant for high energy astrophysics.Comment: 13 pages, to appear in the Special December 2005 Issue of Int. J.
Mod. Phys.
Secular interactions between inclined planets and a gaseous disk
In a planetary system, a secular particle resonance occurs at a location
where the precession rate of a test particle (e.g. an asteroid) matches the
frequency of one of the precessional modes of the planetary system. We
investigate the secular interactions of a system of mutually inclined planets
with a gaseous protostellar disk that may contain a secular nodal particle
resonance. We determine the normal modes of some mutually inclined planet-disk
systems. The planets and disk interact gravitationally, and the disk is
internally subject to the effects of gas pressure, self-gravity, and turbulent
viscosity. The behavior of the disk at a secular resonance is radically
different from that of a particle, owing mainly to the effects of gas pressure.
The resonance is typically broadened by gas pressure to the extent that global
effects, including large-scale warps, dominate. The standard resonant torque
formula is invalid in this regime. Secular interactions cause a decay of the
inclination at a rate that depends on the disk properties, including its mass,
turbulent viscosity, and sound speed. For a Jupiter-mass planet embedded within
a minimum-mass solar nebula having typical parameters, dissipation within the
disk is sufficient to stabilize the system against tilt growth caused by
mean-motion resonances.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figures, to be published in The Astrophysical Journa
Exposition, d'après les principes de Jacobi, de la méthode suivie par M. Delaunay dans sa Théorie du Mouvement de la Lune autour de la Terre; extension de la méthode
Sur une équation différentielle du second ordre qui joue un rôle important dans la mécanique céleste
Ultra--cold gases and the detection of the Earth's rotation: Bogoliubov space and gravitomagnetism
The present work analyzes the consequences of the gravitomagnetic effect of
the Earth upon a bosonic gas in which the corresponding atoms have a
non--vanishing orbital angular momentum. Concerning the ground state of the
Bogoliubov space of this system we deduce the consequences, on the pressure and
on the speed of sound, of the gravitomagnetic effect. We prove that the effect
on a single atom is very small, but we also show that for some thermodynamical
properties the consequences scale as a non--trivial function of the number of
particles.Comment: 4 page
Weber-like interactions and energy conservation
Velocity dependent forces varying as (such as Weber force), here called Weber-like forces, are examined
from the point of view of energy conservation and it is proved that they are
conservative if and only if . As a consequence, it is shown that
gravitational theories employing Weber-like forces cannot be conservative and
also yield both the precession of the perihelion of Mercury as well as the
gravitational deflection of light.Comment: latex, 11 pages, no figure
The DICE calibration project: design, characterization, and first results
We describe the design, operation, and first results of a photometric
calibration project, called DICE (Direct Illumination Calibration Experiment),
aiming at achieving precise instrumental calibration of optical telescopes. The
heart of DICE is an illumination device composed of 24 narrow-spectrum,
high-intensity, light-emitting diodes (LED) chosen to cover the
ultraviolet-to-near-infrared spectral range. It implements a point-like source
placed at a finite distance from the telescope entrance pupil, yielding a flat
field illumination that covers the entire field of view of the imager. The
purpose of this system is to perform a lightweight routine monitoring of the
imager passbands with a precision better than 5 per-mil on the relative
passband normalisations and about 3{\AA} on the filter cutoff positions. The
light source is calibrated on a spectrophotometric bench. As our fundamental
metrology standard, we use a photodiode calibrated at NIST. The radiant
intensity of each beam is mapped, and spectra are measured for each LED. All
measurements are conducted at temperatures ranging from 0{\deg}C to 25{\deg}C
in order to study the temperature dependence of the system. The photometric and
spectroscopic measurements are combined into a model that predicts the spectral
intensity of the source as a function of temperature. We find that the
calibration beams are stable at the level -- after taking the slight
temperature dependence of the LED emission properties into account. We show
that the spectral intensity of the source can be characterised with a precision
of 3{\AA} in wavelength. In flux, we reach an accuracy of about 0.2-0.5%
depending on how we understand the off-diagonal terms of the error budget
affecting the calibration of the NIST photodiode. With a routine 60-mn
calibration program, the apparatus is able to constrain the passbands at the
targeted precision levels.Comment: 25 pages, 27 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Gravitomagnetism in teleparallel gravity
The assumption that matter charges and currents could generate fields, which
are called, by analogy with electromagnetism, gravitoeletric and
gravitomagnetic fields, dates from the origins of General Relativity (GR). On
the other hand, the Teleparallel Equivalent of GR (TEGR), as a gauge theory,
seems to be the ideal scenario to define these fields, based on the gauge field
strength components. The purpose of the present work is to investigate the
nature of the gravitational electric and magnetic fields in the context of the
TEGR, where the tetrad formalism behind it seems to be more appropriated to
deal with phenomena related to observers.
As our main results, we have obtained, for the first time, the exact
expressions for the gravito-electromagnetic fields for the Schwarzschild
solution that in the linear approximation become the usual expected ones. To
improve our understanding about these fields, we have also studied the geometry
produced by a spherical rotating shell in slow motion and weak field regime.
Again, the expressions obtained are in complete agreement with those of
electromagnetism.Comment: 25 pages. Submitted to International Journal of Modern Physics D.
Version 2: some new discussions, references adde
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