Related papers: The Sun Asphericities: Astrophysical Relevance
Of all the solar fundamental parameters (mass, diameter, gravity at the surface,...), the gravitational moments have been quite often ignored in the past, mainly due to the great difficulty to get a reliable estimate. Even though the order…
One of the most well-known tests of General Relativity (GR) results from combining measurements of the anomalous precession of the orbit of Mercury with a determination of the gravitational quadrupole moment of the Sun J_2. The latter can…
The perihelion advance of the orbit of Mercury has long been one of the observational cornerstones for testing General Relativity (G.R.). The main goal of this paper is to discuss how, presently, observational and theoretical constraints…
The exterior gravitational field of a slowly-rotating neutron star can be characterized by its multipole moments, the first few being the neutron star mass, moment of inertia, and quadrupole moment to quadratic order in spin. In principle,…
The Sun is not quite a perfect sphere, and its oblateness, thought to be induced through its rotation, has been measured using optical observations of its radius. Its gravitational quadrupole moment can then be deduced using solar models,…
By applying the theory of slowly rotating stars to the Sun, the solar quadrupole and octopole moments J2 and J4 were computed using a solar model obtained from CESAM stellar evolution code (Morel, 1997) combined with a recent model of solar…
The solar gravitational moments $J_{2n}$ are important astronomical quantities whose precise determination is relevant for solar physics, gravitational theory and high precision astrometry and celestial mechanics. Accordingly, we propose in…
The Sun's global inertial modes are very sensitive to the solar differential rotation and to properties of the deep solar convection zone which are currently poorly constrained. These properties include the superadiabatic temperature…
High-precision astrometry on sub-micro-arcsecond level in angular resolution requires accurate determination of the trajectory of a light-signal from the celestial light source through the gravitational field of the Solar system toward the…
In this article we present some recent results on identifying correctly the relativistic multipole moments of numerically constructed spacetimes, and the consequences that this correction has on searching for appropriate analytic spacetimes…
With rapid development of techniques for astronomical observations, the precision of measurements has been significantly increasing. Theories of astronomical relativistic reference systems, which are the foundation for processing and…
The time delay of a light signal in the quadrupole field of a body at rest is determined in the second post-Newtonian (2PN) approximation in harmonic coordinates. For grazing light rays at Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn the 2PN quadrupole effect…
General relativistic deflection of light by mass, dipole, and quadrupole moments of gravitational field of a moving massive planet in the Solar system is derived. All terms of order 1 microarcsecond are taken into account, parametrized, and…
We consider some models of f(R) gravity that can be used to describe, in a suitable weak-field limit, the gravitational field of the Sun. Using a perturbative approach, we focus on the impact that the modifications of the gravitational…
General relativistic deflection of light by mass, dipole, and quadrupole moments of gravitational field of a moving massive planet in the Solar system is derived in the approximation of the linearized Einstein equations. All terms of order…
Many questions are still open regarding the structure and the dynamics of the solar core. By constraining more this region in the solar evolution models, we can reduce the incertitudes on some physical processes and on momentum transport…
The solar cycle and its associated magnetic activity are the main drivers behind changes in the interplanetary environment and Earth's upper atmosphere (commonly referred to as space weather and climate). In recent years there has been an…
Neutron stars and quark stars are not only characterized by their mass and radius, but also by how fast they spin, through their moment of inertia, and how much they can be deformed, through their Love number and quadrupole moment. These…
The gravitational properties of astrophysical objects depend sensitively on their internal structure. In Newtonian theory, the gravitational potential of a rotating star can be fully described by an infinite number of multipole moments of…
The trajectories of test particles moving in the gravitational field of a non-spherically symmetric mass distribution become affected by the presence of multipole moments. In the case of hyperbolic trajectories, the quadrupole moment of an…