A new laser-ranged satellite for General Relativity and space geodesy: III. De Sitter effect and the LARES 2 space experiment

TL;DR

The paper assesses the impact of the de Sitter effect on the LARES 2 satellite experiment, confirming it has negligible influence on the high-precision test of frame-dragging in fundamental physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the de Sitter effect's uncertainty does not significantly affect the LARES 2 experiment's accuracy in testing frame-dragging.

Findings

De Sitter effect has negligible impact on error budget.

LARES 2 achieves about 0.2% accuracy in frame-dragging measurement.

Previous error analyses remain valid with the inclusion of the de Sitter effect.

Abstract

In two previous papers we presented the LARES 2 space experiment aimed at a very accurate test of frame-dragging and at other tests of fundamental physics and measurements of space geodesy and geodynamics. We presented the error sources of the LARES 2 experiment, its error budget and Monte Carlo simulations and covariance analyses confirming an accuracy of a few parts in one thousand in the test of frame-dragging. Here we discuss the impact of the orbital perturbation known as the de Sitter effect, or geodetic precession, in the error budget of the LARES 2 frame-dragging experiment. We show that the uncertainty in the de Sitter effect has a negligible impact in the final error budget because of the very accurate results now available for the test of the de Sitter precession and because of its very nature. The total error budget in the LARES 2 test of frame-dragging remains at a level of the order of 0.2%, as determined in the first two papers of this series.