Revisiting the border between Newtonian mechanics and General Relativity: The periastron advance

Autores/as

  • Joaquim A. Batlle Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Catalonia.
  • Rosario López Department of Astronomy and Meteorology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia

Resumen

The problem of periastron advance, which is the basis of one of the three classical tests of relativity theory, is revised with respect to both Newtonian mechanics and General Relativity and updated in the light of recent astronomical measurements of binary pulsars. We show that in Newtonian mechanics the addition of a corrective term to Newton’s law of gravitation, consistent with the principles of Newtonian mechanics, leads to the same formula of periastron advance as that used in General Relativity, which proves to be valid in all astronomical cases known, even in the cases of binary pulsars such as PSR B1913+16, PSR J1141-6545 and the so-called double pulsar PSR J0737-3039A and PSR J0737-3039B, which are considered as natural relativity laboratories. Thus, among the relativistic phenomena, the periastron advance is one that can be also understood in Newtonian terms by means of an ad hoc assumption. 

Keywords: periastron · perihelion · gravitation · pulsar · Newtonian mechanics

Biografía del autor/a

Joaquim A. Batlle, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, Catalonia.


Department of Mechanical Engineering
Technical University of Catalonia
Av. Diagonal, 647
08028 Barcelona, Catalonia
Tel. +34-934016717

Descargas

Número

Vol. 10 Núm. 1 (2014)

Sección

Research reviews

Licencia

This work is subject, unless the contrary is indicated in the text, the photographs or in other illustrations, to an Attribution —Non-
Commercial— No Derivative Works 3.0 Creative Commons License, the full text of which can be consulted at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. You are free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work provided that the author is credited and reuse of the material is restricted to non-commercial purposes only and that no derivative works are created from the original material.