The Post-Newtonian Effects of the Rotation of the Central Body on the Motion of the Celestial Body in Three Gravitational Theories

Abstract

The post-Newtonian effects of the rotation of the central body on the variation of celestial orbital elements are studied according to the post-Newtonian metric theory. The variation of celestial orbital elements caused by the rotation of the central body in three gravitational theories of Einstein, Brans-Dicke and Nordtvedt is obtained by using the method of general perturbation. The resulting effects are the periodic variation of inclination, eccentricity and mean anomaly; the periodic and secular variation of longitudes of periastron and ascending node and mean longitudes of epoch, but the semimajor axis remains unperturbed (no variation). In addition, the obtained theoretical results are applied to the calculation of the post-Newtonian effect of the rotation of the sun on the variation of the orbital elements of planets in solar system. The numerical results are given in Table 1. Finally, the obtained results are discussed and compared with other theories.