The Solar Lense-Thirring effect: perspectives for a future measurement

TL;DR

This paper discusses the potential for measuring the Sun's Lense-Thirring effect on Mercury's orbit, highlighting recent data analysis that constrains the Sun's angular momentum through relativistic precession observations.

Contribution

It presents a new analysis of MESSENGER data that estimates the Sun's angular momentum via the Lense-Thirring effect, advancing the prospects for future measurements.

Findings

Lense-Thirring perihelion precession of Mercury is compatible with current data.

A 25% estimate of the Sun's angular momentum was obtained from MESSENGER data.

The analysis shows high correlation between the Lense-Thirring effect and the Solar quadrupole moment.

Abstract

The predicted Lense-Thirring perihelion precession of Mercury induced by the Sun's angular momentum through its general relativistic gravitomagnetic field amounts to 2 milliarcseconds per century. It turned out to be compatible with the latest experimental determinations of the supplementary perihelion precession of Mercury with the INPOP15a ephemerides, whose accuracy level has nowadays reached the magnitude of the predicted relativistic effect itself thanks to the analysis of some years of tracking data of the MESSENGER spacecraft, which orbited Mercury from 2011 to 2015. A dedicated analysis of three years of MESSENGER data with the DE ephemerides allowed for a $25\%$ determination of the Sun's angular momentum by means of the Lense-Thirring effect, which turned out to be highly correlated with the signature due to the Solar quadrupole mass moment $J_2^{\odot}$.