Abstract

A near-Earth gravity experiment is considered in which a pair of satellites exchange laser signals. As a concrete example, numerical estimates were made using the satellite configuration in the GRACE-FO mission. An expression for the signal phase is obtained, which provides an accuracy of 1 picometer (pm) when calculating the distance between satellites. The influence of all significant gravitational effects on the signal propagation, such as the gravimagnetic field of the Earth and the tidal fields of the Sun and Moon, is considered. Special attention is paid to the study of the contributions of the Earth’s potential harmonics. Phase perturbations of the first and second orders are considered, and it is shown that the effect of the second-order corrections lies beyond the accuracy of 1 pm. This makes it possible to express the signal phase in a fairly compact form.

中文翻译：

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具有皮米计精度的航天器之间距离测量的相对论减少

摘要

考虑了近地重力实验，其中一对卫星交换激光信号。举一个具体的例子，在GRACE-FO任务中使用卫星配置进行了数值估算。获得了信号相位的表达式，当计算卫星之间的距离时，其精度为1皮米（pm）。考虑了所有重大重力效应对信号传播的影响，例如地球的重力磁场以及日月的潮汐场。特别注意研究地球潜在谐波的贡献。考虑到一阶和二阶的相位扰动，结果表明二阶校正的影响超出了1 pm的精度。