Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T21:33:16.768Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sub-Microarcsecond Astrometry and New Horizons in Relativistic Gravitational Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Sergei M. Kopeikin  and
Carl R. Gwinn
Sergei M. Kopeikin
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and Astronomy, 223 Physics Building, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
Carl R. Gwinn
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of Californiaat Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Attaining the limit of sub-microarcsecond optical resolution will completely revolutionize fundamental astrometry by merging it with relativistic gravitational physics. Beyond the sub-microarcsecond threshold, one will meet in the sky a new population of physical phenomena caused by primordial gravitational waves from the early universe and/or different localized astronomical sources, space-time topological defects, moving gravitational lenses, time variability of gravitational fields of the solar system and binary stars, and many others. Adequate physical interpretation of these yet undetectable sub-microarcsecond phenomena cannot be achieved on the ground of the “standard” post-Newtonian approach (PNA), which is valid only in the near-zone of astronomical objects having a time-dependent gravitational field. We describe a new, post-Minkowskian relativistic approach for modeling astrometric observations having sub-microarcsecond precision and briefly discuss the light-propagation effects caused by gravitational waves and other phenomena related to time-dependent gravitational fields. The domain of applicability of the PNA in relativistic space astrometry is outlined explicitly.

Type
Section 3. Relativistic Considerations
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 180: Towards Models and Constants for Sub-Microarcsecond Astrometry , March 2000 , pp. 303 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © US Naval Observatory 2000

References

Brumberg, V.A., 1991, Essential Relativistic Celestial Mechanics, Bristol: Adam Hilger.Google Scholar
Fock, V.A., 1959, The Theory of Space, Time and Gravitation, London: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Damour, T. & Schäfer, G., 1991, Phys. Rev. Lett, 66, 2549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gwinn, C.R., Eubanks, T.M., Pyne, T., Birkinshaw, M. & Matsakis, D.N., 1997, Astrophys. J., 485, 87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klioner, S.A. & Kopeikin, S.M., 1992, Astron. J., 104, 897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopeikin, S.M., 1992, Proc. MG6 Meeting on GR, eds. Sato, H., Nakamura, T., and Ruffini, R., Singapore: World Sci. Publ., 1654–56.Google Scholar
Kopeikin, S.M., 1999, Proc. XXXIVth Rencontres de Moriond on “Gravitational Waves and Experimental Gravity,” Les Arcs, January 1999 (in press).Google Scholar
Kopeikin, S.M., Schäfer, G., Gwinn, C.R., & Eubanks, T.M., 1999, Phys. Rev. D, 59, 084023.Google Scholar
Kopeikin, S. & Schäfer, G., 1999, Phys. Rev. D, 60, 124002.Google Scholar
Kopeikin, S.M. & Mashhoon, B., 2000, in preparation.Google Scholar
Pyne, T., Gwinn, C.R., Birkinshaw, M., Eubanks, T.M., & Matsakis, D.N., 1996, Astrophys. J., 465, 566.Google Scholar
Reasenberg, R.D., Shapiro, I.I., Macneil, P.E., Goldstein, R.B., Breidenthal, J.C., Brenkle, J.P., Cain, D.L., Kaufman, T.M., Komarek, T.A., & Zygielbaum, A.I., 1979, Astrophys. J., 234, L219.Google Scholar
Sazhin, M.V., Zharov, V.E., Volynkin, A.V., & Kalinina, T.A., 1998, MNRAS, 300, 287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soffel, M.H., 1989, Relativity in Astrometry, Celestial Mechanics and Geodesy, Berlin: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Will, C.M., 1993, Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics,> Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, J.G., Newhall, XX, & Dickey, J.O., 1996, Phys. Rev. D, 53, 6730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar