Post-Newtonian Reference Frames for Advanced Theory of the Lunar Motion and a New Generation of Lunar Laser Ranging

TL;DR

This paper develops post-Newtonian reference frames and coordinate transformations for precise lunar laser ranging, enhancing the accuracy of lunar and Earth orbital and rotational dynamics studies.

Contribution

It introduces a new set of post-Newtonian reference frames and transformations, addressing residual gauge freedom to improve lunar laser ranging analysis.

Findings

Achieved millimeter-level precision in lunar laser ranging.

Derived coordinate transformations between reference frames.

Analyzed gauge freedom to eliminate spurious effects.

Abstract

We construct a set of post-Newtonian reference frames for a comprehensive study of the orbital dynamics and rotational motion of the Moon and Earth by means of lunar laser ranging (LLR) with the precision of one millimeter. We also derive the post-Newtonian coordinate transformations between the frames and analyze the residual gauge freedom, which is used for removing spurious post-Newtonian effects from the equations of motion of the solar system bodies.