Remark on orbital precession due to central-force perturbations

TL;DR

This paper comments on a previous work by showing that the formula for orbital precession caused by central-force perturbations can be derived simply using Hamilton's vector, clarifying the original result.

Contribution

It provides a simplified derivation of the orbital precession formula using Hamilton's vector, offering a clearer understanding of the original result.

Findings

Precession formula can be derived using Hamilton's vector

Simplifies the understanding of orbital precession

Clarifies the result of the previous paper

Abstract

This is a comment on the recent paper by G. S. Adkins and J. McDonnell ``Orbital precession due to central-force perturbations'' published in Phys. Rev. D75 (2007), 082001 [arXiv:gr-qc/0702015]. We show that the main result of this paper, the formula for the precession of Keplerian orbits induced by central-force perturbations, can be obtained very simply by the use of Hamilton's vector.