A critical analysis of a recent test of the Lense-Thirring effect with the LAGEOS satellites

TL;DR

This paper critically examines how uncertainties in Earth gravity models and secular variations affect the accuracy of measuring the Lense-Thirring effect with LAGEOS satellites, highlighting a total error of about 19%.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative assessment of the impact of gravity model uncertainties and secular variations on Lense-Thirring measurements.

Findings

Systematic error from static geopotential ranges from 4% to 9%.

Impact of secular variations Jdots is about 13% over 11 years.

Total error in recent Lense-Thirring test is approximately 19%.

Abstract

We discuss the impact of the present-day uncertainties in the recently released CHAMP and/or GRACE Earth gravity models on the measurement of the Lense-Thirring effect with the nodes of the LAGEOS satellites. Also the role of the secular variations Jdots of the even zonal harmonics is quantitatively assessed via numerical simulations and tests. While the systematic error due to the static part of the geopotential ranges from 4% (EIGEN-GRACE02S) to 9% (GGM02S), the impact of the Jdots amounts to 13% over 11 years. This yields a 19% 1-sigma total error in the test recently performed with EIGEN-GRACE02S.