Gravitomagnetic effects in Kerr-de Sitter space-time

TL;DR

This paper investigates the orbital precessions caused by the weak-field Kerr-de Sitter metric, deriving bounds on the parameter k from Solar System and pulsar observations, and compares these to constraints on the cosmological constant.

Contribution

It provides explicit calculations of orbital precessions in Kerr-de Sitter space and derives observational bounds on the parameter k, linking local gravitational effects to cosmological implications.

Findings

Bound on k from planetary perihelion precessions: k <= 10^-29 m^-2

Bound on k from LAGEOS satellite: k <= 10^-26 m^-2

Bound on k from pulsar data: k <= 3 x 10^-21 m^-2

Abstract

We explicitly worked out the orbital effects induced on the trajectory of a test particle by the the weak-field approximation of the Kerr-de Sitter metric. It results that the node, the pericentre and the mean anomaly undergo secular precessions proportional to k, which is a measure of the non linearity of the theory. We used such theoretical predictions and the latest observational determinations of the non-standard precessions of the perihelia of the inner planets of the Solar System to put a bound on k getting k <= 10^-29 m^-2. The node rate of the LAGEOS Earth's satellite yields k <= 10^-26 m^-2. The periastron precession of the double pulsar PSR J0737-3039A/B allows to obtain k <= 3 10^-21 m^-2. Interpreting k as a cosmological constant \Lambda, it turns out that such constraints are weaker than those obtained from the Schwarzschild-de Sitter metric.