Improving gravity theory tests with solar system “grand fits”

Physical Review D - Particles, Fields, Gravitation and Cosmology

Volumn 61, Issue 12, 2000, Pages

  Nordtvedt, Kenneth ^a  

^a Northwest Analysis   (United States)

Author keywords

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Indexed keywords

EID: 17144432335     PISSN: 15507998     EISSN: 15502368     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.61.122001     Document Type: Article

References (8)

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2. I. I. Shapiro, in General Relativity and Gravitation, 1989, edited by N. Ashby, D. F. Bartlett, and W. Wyss (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1990), p. 313.
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5. W. de Sitter, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 77, 155 (1916).
6. K. Nordtvedt, Icarus 114, 51 (1995).
7. Because frequencies, themselves, are not typically model parameters whose values are determined from the least-squares fits, it is not widely appreciated how well the ranging experiments have measured certain frequencies. My estimates are based on the rough rule (Formula presented) which gives the precision of frequency determination (Formula presented) which results from being able to measure smooth trends in the range to precision (Formula presented) over a time interval t for an oscillation of amplitude (Formula presented). For Mars, I have assumed (Formula presented) (individual range measurements to Mars have rms errors of about 7 m), (Formula presented), and (Formula presented).
8. Some of the model’s “nuisance” perturbations are actually of more importance; their functional shape may be so similar to that of an “important” model parameter, the fitting process may not “separate well” the contributions.