https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-017-5339-y
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
A new laser-ranged satellite for General Relativity and space geodesy: III. De Sitter effect and the LARES 2 space experiment
1
Dip. Ingegneria dell’Innovazione, Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy
2
Centro Fermi, Rome, Italy
3
Theory Group, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA
4
Center for Cosmology and Astrophysics, Alikhanian National Laboratory and Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia
5
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
* e-mail: ignazio.ciufolini@gmail.com
Received:
10
August
2017
Accepted:
28
October
2017
Published online:
1
December
2017
In two previous papers we presented the LARES 2 space experiment aimed at a very accurate test of frame-dragging and at other tests of fundamental physics and measurements of space geodesy and geodynamics. We presented the error sources of the LARES 2 experiment, its error budget and Monte Carlo simulations and covariance analyses confirming an accuracy of a few parts in one thousand in the test of frame-dragging. Here we discuss the impact of the orbital perturbation known as the de Sitter effect, or geodetic precession, in the error budget of the LARES 2 frame-dragging experiment. We show that the uncertainty in the de Sitter effect has a negligible impact in the final error budget because of the very accurate results now available for the test of the de Sitter precession and because of its very nature. The total error budget in the LARES 2 test of frame-dragging remains at a level of the order of 
, as determined in the first two papers of this series.
© The Author(s), 2017
