Can the Pioneer anomaly be induced by velocity-dependent forces? Tests in the outer regions of solar system with planetary dynamics

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the impact on the orbital motions of the outer planets of the solar system from Jupiter to Pluto of some velocity-dependent forces recently proposed to phenomenologically explain the Pioneer anomaly, and compare their predictions (secular variations of the longitude of perihelion \varpi or of the semimajor axis a and the eccentricity e) with the latest observational determinations by E.V. Pitjeva with the EPM2006 ephemerides. It turns out that while the predicted centennial shifts of a are so huge that they would have been easily detected for all planets with the exception of Neptune, the predicted anomalous precessions of \varpi are too small, with the exception of Jupiter, so that they are still compatible with the estimated corrections to the standard Newton-Einstein perihelion precessions. As a consequence, we incline to discard those extra-forces predicting secular variations of a and e, also for some other reasons, and to give a chance, at least observationally, to those models predicting still undetectable perihelion precessions. Of course, adequate theoretical foundations for them should be found.

arXiv commentLaTex, WS macros, 12 pages, 4 tables, 4 figures, 30 references. To appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Gravitational Anomalies in the Solar System?
• Weyl conformastatic perihelion advance of small body objects
• Anomalous precession of planets on a Weyl conformastatic solution
• Re-Examination of Globally Flat Space-Time
• Constraining an Expanding Locally Anisotropic metric from the Pioneer anomaly
• Does the Neptunian system of satellites challenge a gravitational origin for the Pioneer anomaly?
• Pioneer 10 and 11 Spacecraft Anomalous Acceleration in the light of the Nonsymmetric Kaluza-Klein (Jordan-Thiry) Theory
• On the possible onset of the Pioneer anomaly
• A Model for the Pioneer Anomaly