In the late 20th and beginning 21st century high-precision astronomy, positioning and metrology strongly rely on general relativity. Supported by exercises and solutions this book offers graduate students and researchers entering those fields a self-contained and exhaustive but accessible treatment of applied general relativity. The book is written in a homogenous (graduate level textbook) style allowing the reader to understand the arguments step by step. It first introduces the mathematical and theoretical foundations of gravity theory and then concentrates on its general relativistic applications: clock rates, clock sychronization, establishment of time scales, astronomical references frames, relativistic astrometry, celestial mechanics and metrology. The authors present up-to-date relativistic models for applied techniques such as Satellite LASER Ranging (SLR), Lunar LASER Ranging (LLR), Globale Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), Very Large Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), radar measurements, gyroscopes and pulsar timing. A list of acronyms helps the reader keep an overview and a mathematical appendix provides required functions and terms.
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.
Thank you for visiting our website. Would you like to provide feedback on how we could improve your experience?
This site does not use any third party cookies with one exception — it uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic.Learn More.