The book "Relativity in Astrometry, Celestial Mechanics and Geodesy" repre sents a significant contribution to modern relativistic celestial mechanics and astrometry. In these branches of astronomy the theory of general relativity is used nowadays as an efficient practical framework for constructing accurate dynamical theories of motion of celestial bodies and discussing high-precision observations. The author develops the useful tools for this purpose and intro duces the reader into the modern state of the art in these domains. More specifically, the distinctive feature of the book is the wide application of the tetrad formalism to astronomical problems. One may not agree with the author's opinion that this is the only method so far to be able to treat the rel ativistic astronomical problems in a consistent and satisfactory manner. (On the contrary, one may foresee in the nearest future other books on relativistic celestial mechanics and astrometry based on different approaches solving the same problems. ) However, we are now at the beginning of practical relativis tic astronomy and it will demand much effort to reconstruct in a relativistic manner all Newtonian conceptions of ephemeris astronomy and geodesy. In particular, this concern. s the definitions of reference frames, time scales and astronomical units of measurement. This book is one of the first steps in the correct direction. V. A.

Autorentext

Prof. Dr. phil. nat. Michael Soffel is the director of the Lohrmann Observatory of the Technical University Dresden. He is an internationally known expert in relativistic celestial mechanics, relativistic astronomy and geodesy and experimental gravity research. He is the author of the books Relativity in Astrometry, Celestial Mechanics and Geodesy (Springer, 1989) and Space-Time Reference Systems. Prof. Wen-Biao Han, who receicved his Ph.D. in 2009, is full professor at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research area focuses on relativistic fundamental astronomy, numerical simulations of gravity waves and low-frequency gravitational astronomy. He is author of many scientific papers and principle investigator of the group 'Gravitational waves and relativistic fundamental astronomy' at Shanghai Astronomical observatory.

Klappentext

This monograph aims to provide the community of people involved in the establishment or use of highly precise spatial-temporal reference frames on earth or in space or interested in the dynamics of gravitationally interacting bodies, with a useful background of general relativity. General relativity is described in not-too-technical language as an integral part of ordinary classical physics and applied to such practical problems as clock synchronization, laser ranging to satellites or reflectors on the Moon, and very long base line interferometry. The present status of measuring techniques and levels of accuracy in the field are reviewed and it is shown how relativity enters the theoretical analysis of measuring data.

Inhalt

1. Relativity in Astrometry, Celestial Mechanics and Geodesy.- 1.1 Astrometry.- 1.2 Celestial Mechanics.- 1.3 Geodesy.- 2. Newtonian and Relativistic Space-Time.- 2.1 Newtonian Space-Time.- 2.2 Relativistic Space-Time.- 3. Reference Frames and Astrometry.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Clocks and the Temporal Aspect of Reference Frames.- 3.3 Spatial Reference Directions.- 3.4 Reference Frames and Coordinate Systems.- 4. Celestial Mechanics.- 4.1 Post-Newtonian Motion of Point Masses.- 4.2 Motion of Satellites.- 4.3 Lunar Motion.- 4.4 Motion of the Planetary System.- 4.5 Numerically Produced Ephemerides Ill.- 4.6 Timing Observations of Pulsars in Binary Systems.- 4.7 Relativistic Motion of Extended Bodies.- 5. Geodesy.- 5.1 Post-Newtonian Gravimetry.- 5.2 Realisation of Time-Scales.- 5.3 Space Methods.- A.1 PPN-Metric, Christoffel Symbols and Curvature Tensor.- A.2 The PPN Two-Body Problem.- A.2.1 The Wagoner-Will Representation.- A.2.2 The Brumberg Representation.- A.2.3 The Damour-Deruelle Representation.- A.2.4 The Solution with Osculating Elements.- A.3 On the PPN Hill-Brown Theory.- A.3.1 Geocentric EIH Equations for the Restricted Three-Body Problem.- A.3.2 The Geodetic Precession as derived from the EIH Equations.- A.3.3 The PPN Hill-Brown Calculation in the Instantaneous Geocentric System.- A.4 On the PPN Euler Equation.- References.