Gravity can be studied in detail in near Earth orbits NEO's using laser-ranged test masses tracked with few-mm accuracy by ILRS. The two LAGEOS satellites have been used to measure frame dragging (a truly rotational effect predicted by GR) with a 10% error. A new mission and an optimized, second generation satellite, LARES (I. Ciufolini PI), is in preparation to reach an accuracy of 1% or less on frame dragging, to measure some PPN parameters, to test the 1/r(2) law in a very weak. field and, possibly, to test select models of unified theories (using the perigee). This requires a full thermal analysis of the test mass and an accurate knowledge of the asymmetric thermal thursts due to the radiation emitted by the Sun and Earth. A Space Climatic Facility (SCF) has been built at INFN-LNF (Frascati, Italy) to perform this experimental program on LAGEOS and LARES prototypes. It consists of a 2 m x 1 m cryostat, simulators of the Sun and Earth radiations and a versatile thermometry system made of discrete probes and an infrared digital camera.
PROBING GRAVITY IN NEO WITH HIGH-ACCURACY LASER-RANGED TEST MASSES / A., Bosco; C., Cantone; S., Dell'Agnello; G. O., DELLE MONACHE; M. A., Franceschi; M., Garattini; T., Napolitano; I., Ciufolini; A., Agneni; Graziani, Filippo; P., Ialongo; A., Lucantoni; Paolozzi, Antonio; Peroni, Isidoro; G. SINDONI G., Bellettini; R., Tauraso; E. C., Pavlis; D. G., Currie; D. P., Rubincam; D. A., Arnold; R., Matzner; V. J., Slabinski. - In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MODERN PHYSICS D. - ISSN 0218-2718. - 16:(2007), pp. 2271-2285. [10.1142/S0218271807011322]
PROBING GRAVITY IN NEO WITH HIGH-ACCURACY LASER-RANGED TEST MASSES
GRAZIANI, Filippo;PAOLOZZI, Antonio;PERONI, Isidoro;
2007
Abstract
Gravity can be studied in detail in near Earth orbits NEO's using laser-ranged test masses tracked with few-mm accuracy by ILRS. The two LAGEOS satellites have been used to measure frame dragging (a truly rotational effect predicted by GR) with a 10% error. A new mission and an optimized, second generation satellite, LARES (I. Ciufolini PI), is in preparation to reach an accuracy of 1% or less on frame dragging, to measure some PPN parameters, to test the 1/r(2) law in a very weak. field and, possibly, to test select models of unified theories (using the perigee). This requires a full thermal analysis of the test mass and an accurate knowledge of the asymmetric thermal thursts due to the radiation emitted by the Sun and Earth. A Space Climatic Facility (SCF) has been built at INFN-LNF (Frascati, Italy) to perform this experimental program on LAGEOS and LARES prototypes. It consists of a 2 m x 1 m cryostat, simulators of the Sun and Earth radiations and a versatile thermometry system made of discrete probes and an infrared digital camera.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.