Tidal satellite perturbations and the Lense-Thirring effect

TL;DR

This paper evaluates how Earth's tidal perturbations affect the measurement of the tiny Lense-Thirring relativistic effect using satellite orbital data, concluding that tides introduce a manageable level of uncertainty over several years.

Contribution

It explicitly calculates the impact of Earth's solid and ocean tides on LAGEOS satellite measurements of the Lense-Thirring effect, improving the understanding of potential measurement errors.

Findings

Tidal effects can cause up to 4% uncertainty over 4 years.

Tidal influence reduces to less than 2% over 7 years.

Current tide knowledge allows for quantifying their impact on measurements.

Abstract

The tiny general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect can be measured by means of a suitable combination of the orbital residuals of the nodes of LAGEOS and LAGEOS II and the perigee of LAGEOS II. This observable is affected, among other factors, by the Earth' s solid and ocean tides. They induce long-period orbital perturbations that, over observational periods of few years, may alias the detection of the gravitomagnetic secular trend of interest. In this paper we calculate explicitly the most relevant tidal perturbations acting upon LAGEOSs and assess their influence on the detection of the Lense-Thirring effect. The present day level of knowledge of the solid and ocean tides allow us to conclude that their influence on it ranges from almost 4% over 4 years to less than 2% over 7 years.