A Note on Frame Dragging

Abstract

The measurement of spin effects in general relativity has recently taken centre stage with the successfully launched Gravity Probe B experiment coming toward an end, coupled with recently reported measurements using laser ranging. Many accounts of these experiments have been in terms of frame-dragging. We point out that this terminology has given rise to much confusion and that a better description is in terms of spin-orbit and spin-spin effects. In particular, we point out that the de Sitter precession (which has been mesured to a high accuracy) is also a frame-dragging effect and provides an accurate benchmark measurement of spin-orbit effects which GPB needs to emulate.

References in corpus (4)

• A Double-Pulsar System - A Rare Laboratory for Relativistic Gravity and Plasma Physics
• Progress in Lunar Laser Ranging Tests of Relativistic Gravity
• Measurement of gravitational spin-orbit coupling in a binary pulsar system
• Proposed New Test of Spin Effects in General Relativity

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Gravitomagnetic Influence on Gyroscopes and on the Lunar Orbit
• Fundamental Physics and General Relativity with the LARES and LAGEOS satellites
• Gravitomagnetism and the significance of the curvature scalar invariants
• Gravito-Magnetism in one-body and two-body systems: Theory and Experiments
• Rotation and Spin in Physics
• On Some Critical Issues of the LAGEOS-Based Tests of the Lense-Thirring Effect
• Elementary derivation of the Lense-Thirring precession