Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2602.08720

Post-Newtonian accelerations of a Mercury orbiter

Miriam Falletta·Gabriel Rodríguez-Moris·Sergei A. Klioner
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We investigate the relativistic modeling of spacecraft motion in Mercury's post-Newtonian local coordinates. This investigation is motivated by the fact that Mercury's post-Newtonian gravitational field (as well as that of any other planet) admits an expansion in terms of multipole moments, which are most appropriately defined in the local reference system. The equations of motion in the Mercury-centric local frame include relativistic local perturbations, given by the Schwarzschild term, Lense-Thirring precession, and the acceleration due to the quadrupole moment, and relativistic third-body perturbations, which are the gravito-electric and gravito-magnetic accelerations, along with a coupling term between Mercury and other solar system bodies. The relativistic third-body perturbations are usually neglected in all practical applications. In this study, we analyze the magnitude of the post-Newtonian terms of the equations of motion formulated in the Mercury-centric frame, evaluating them along the trajectories of the two BepiColombo spacecrafts. Based on this analysis, we provide a practical approach for constructing a high-accuracy relativistic orbital model suitable for a Mercury orbiter.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-ph.EPastro-ph.IM

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Miriam Falletta, Gabriel Rodríguez-Moris, Sergei A. Klioner. 2026-02-09. Post-Newtonian accelerations of a Mercury orbiter. https://doi.org/10.1103/p4rb-m7r4

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗