Multipole expansion of the gravitational field in a general class of fourth-order theories of gravity and the application in gyroscopic precession

Bofeng Wu, En-Wei Liang

A viable weak-field and slow-motion approximation method is constructed in $F(R,R_{\mu \nu }{R}^{\mu \nu },R_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }{R}^{\mu \nu \rho \sigma })$ gravity, a general class of fourth-order theories of gravity. By ap…