Gravity: Where Do We Stand?

The logo of the SIGRAV School “Gravity: Where Do We Stand?” has beencomposed from a number of pictures from internet and the Group of ExperimentalGravitation at IAPS-INAF. It is meant to symbolize various facets in gravitational

physics research. Roberto Peron thanks Andrea Reale for his help in puttingtogether the material.

Roberto Peron • Monica Colpi • Vittorio GoriniUgo Moschella

Editors

Gravity: Where Do WeStand?

EditorsRoberto PeronIstituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia SpazialiIstituto Nazionale di AstrofisicaRomaItaly

Monica ColpiDipartimento di Fisica G. OcchialiniUniversità degli Studi di Milano-BicoccaMilanoItaly

Vittorio GoriniDipartimento di Scienza e Alta TecnologiaUniversità degli Studi dell’InsubriaComoItaly

Ugo MoschellaDipartimento di Scienza e Alta TecnologiaUniversità degli Studi dell’InsubriaComoItaly

ISBN 978-3-319-20223-5 ISBN 978-3-319-20224-2 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-20224-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015949236

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In Memoriam

Stefano Braccini (1964–2011) StefanoBraccini sadly left us in February 2011,at a time when he was working hard onthe Advanced Virgo project, studying andimagining how to achieve the best possi-ble sensitivity and secure the beginning ofGravitational Wave Astronomy.

Stefano graduated in Physics in 1992,with supervisors Carlo Bradaschia andJean-Yves Vinet, with a thesis work onthe effect of diffused light in the Virgoarms and in the central area. Subsequentlyhe studied as Perfezionando at the Scuola

Normale under the supervision of Adalberto Giazotto, until the discussion of his PhD thesis in1996. During that time he dedicated himself to the development of the Seismic Superattenuator,a characteristic feature of the Virgo interferometer that allowed then unprecedented performancein the 10 and 100 Hz detection band. Following the thesis work, Stefano took the responsibilityof completing the design of the full mirror suspension and following the construction of the nineSuperattenuators, ensuring the coordination of the Rome and Pisa groups. He then worked on thecommissioning of the interferometer, engaging a never-ending battle against noise. High-qualitydata were collected in 2009, demonstrating the fitness of Virgo for listening to the sky for years.This paved the way toward the second generation of interferometers whose development Stefanodevoted many efforts to, and several of his thoughts are now integrated in the design.

Stefano took the leadership of the Pisa Virgo group in 2007, leading with enthusiasm the effortson the detector and on the data analysis side, with special attention to rotating neutron star signals.He also dedicated much energy to the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), of which hewas a researcher and then senior researcher. In particular, acting as referee for astroparticle exper-iments he was rapidly appreciated for his interest and passion for many other fields of physicsresearch. We will remember Stefano for his achievements and his scientific and human integrity,his generosity. One way he would have liked is that we work harder than ever toward the detectionof gravitational waves.

Francesco Fidecaro Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

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vi In Memoriam

Angioletta Coradini (1946–2011) Angioletta Coradini was anastrophysicist and a planetary scientist. Born in Rovereto on July1st, 1946 she graduated in Physics from Rome University in1970; she started her career as a planetary scientist during thepioneering times of lunar samples and from then on she devotedher whole life and tremendous energy to Planetary Science and,later, to Solar System Space science and exploration.

The range of her scientific interests and activities in PlanetarySciences was broad and spanned from her early study in the sta-tistical classification of lunar samples to theoretical problems inthe field of Solar System formation and evolution; such as mod-

elling of processes of grain accretion for planetesimals growth in gaseous disks, formation of giantplanets and their satellites, and models of the thermal evolution of solid bodies in the Solar System.She published more than 200 scientific papers, many of them reference works in their respectivefields.

At the end of the 1980s, her personal Space Era started, and she directed her interest and energyto the field of Space Science and instrument design: a fleet of imaging spectrometers built underher responsibility are evidence of her dedication and still are flying the empty spaces of the SolarSystem on board spacecraft to Mars, to Venus, to the comets, to the icy realm of Jupiter and beyond.

Angioletta formed a generation of planetary scientists, inspired and led her younger colleagueswith her energy and optimism, and promoted the development of a Planetary Science communityin Italy from scratch with her enthusiasm and her charisma. She was a generous and warm person,always ready to forget many animated discussions with the breaking of her infectious smile.

As an enthusiastic and a passionate scientist, Angioletta was deeply curious of science and ofthe world in general, and did not stop at the questions and puzzles posed by her field, but wasalways ready to be diverted and interested by something for her completely new and unknown, anew challenge to respond to, a new book to study.

This is why we want to remember her in this book: the SIGRAV School at Villa Olmo delvedin scientific topics far from her field, but she sponsored and promoted it with all her energy andpassion. To Angioletta we devote this effort and this book.

Priscilla Cerroni Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali (IAPS-INAF), Roma, Italy

In Memoriam vii

Simeone Peron (1935–2012) Simeone Peron, here with his son Roberto

Preface

The SIGRAV (Italian Society of Relativity and Gravitation) Graduate School inContemporary Relativity and Gravitational Physics has become a traditional meet-ing point in Italy for research in the field of general relativity and gravitationalphysics. The 2009 (VIIIth) edition of this School—Gravity: Where Do We Stand?—has been envisaged as an exploration path of gravitation, seen as a pervasivephenomenon acting at all scales, from the microscopic (the realm of a still-to-be-discovered satisfactory quantum theory of gravitation) to laboratory and SolarSystem experiments, up to astrophysical phenomena and cosmological scenarios.Each step of this path turns out to be full of insight, full of ideas, full of dis-coveries. This is not by chance for at least three reasons. First, as stated above,gravitation seems to play a major role in a whole range of important phenomena,from the build-up of spacetime itself (an oxymoron, we may say) to the formationand evolution of astrophysical structures, up to the very origin and evolution of theuniverse. Second, we have had, for almost a century, an amazing theory (general rel-ativity) whose structure, and especially consequences, we are still exploring. Third,today we have at our disposal an ever-increasing amount of experimental data, fromvarious techniques, and we can confidently speak about precision tests.

The School was attended by more than 50 students from all over the world and thelecturers, all outstanding scientists, were able to cover a substantial part of currentresearch areas, from foundations to frontiers. The days of the School—also thanksto the beautiful venue of Villa Olmo, on Lake Como—have been nice and relaxed.As is customary for the school, after the end of this edition we started working on thepreparation of the related book. This took a considerable amount of time, also dueto new chapters which we have added to meet the suggestions by the book referees(whom we thank for their advice). All contributions were fully updated to the timethe book went to print and we are finally able to offer the text to the attention of thereader.

This is also the place to remember two persons who are not among us anymore.Stefano Braccini has been a passionate and competent lecturer, and as such con-tributed to the success of the School. The news of his untimely passing filled us with

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dismay. Angioletta Coradini, at that time Director of Istituto di Fisica dello SpazioInterplanetario (IFSI-INAF), was a passionate supporter of the School. All of usmiss such a great person, as well as a first-class scientist. On paper . . . The readercan find a remembrance of them by Francesco Fidecaro and Priscilla Cerroni.

The school was made possible thanks to the support of SIGRAV, the University ofInsubria, the Department of Physics and Mathematics of the Insubria University, theNational Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and Galileian Plus S.r.l. (for which wewarmly thank Massimiliano Chersich). We are grateful to the secretarial conferencestaff of the Center Alessandro Volta, in particular to Chiara Stefanetti and FrancescaGamba for their assistance, precious help and kindness.

Roberto PeronMonica Colpi

Vittorio GoriniUgo Moschella

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1Roberto Peron

Part I Foundations and Solar System Tests

Gravity: Newtonian, Post-Newtonian, and General Relativistic . . . . . . . . . . 9Clifford M. Will

The Newtonian Gravity and Some of Its Classical Tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73Valerio A. Iafolla

Fundamental Physics with the LAGEOS Satellites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Roberto Peron

Probing Gravity with Next Generation Lunar Laser Ranging . . . . . . . . . . . 195Manuele Martini and Simone Dell’Agnello

Space-based Tests of Relativistic Gravitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211Vyacheslav G. Turyshev

Part II Astrophysics

The Detection of Gravitational Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237Stefano Braccini and Francesco Fidecaro

The Role of Binary Pulsars in Testing Gravity Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279Andrea Possenti and Marta Burgay

Part III Frontiers

Non-inertial Frames in Special and General Relativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315Luca Lusanna

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The Acceleration Scale, Modified Newtonian Dynamics and SterileNeutrinos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337Antonaldo Diaferio and Garry W. Angus

Lorentz Breaking Effective Field Theory Models for Matter andGravity: Theory and Observational Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367Stefano Liberati and David Mattingly

Possible Low-Energy Manifestations of Strings and Gravity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419Ignatios Antoniadis

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Contributors

Garry W. Angus Astrophysics, Cosmology and Gravity Centre, University ofCape Town, Rondebosch, South Africa

Ignatios Antoniadis Department of Physics, CERN-Theory Division, Geneva,Switzerland

CPHT (UMR CNRS 7644) Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France

Stefano Braccini INFN-Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

Marta Burgay INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Selargius, Cagliari,Italy

Simone Dell’Agnello INFN-LNF, Frascati, Rome

Antonaldo Diaferio Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Torino, andIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Sezione di Torino, Torino, Italy

Francesco Fidecaro “Enrico Fermi” Physics Dept., University of Pisa and INFN,Pisa, Italy

Valerio A. Iafolla Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali (IAPS), IstitutoNazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Roma, Italy

Stefano Liberati SISSA and INFN, Trieste, Italy

Luca Lusanna Polo Scientifico, Sezione INFN di Firenze, Sesto Fiorentino, Flo-rence, Italy

Manuele Martini INFN-LNF, Frascati, Rome

David Mattingly University of New Hampshire, Durham, USA

Roberto Peron Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali (IAPS), IstitutoNazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Roma, Italy

Andrea Possenti INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, Selargius, Cagliari,Italy

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Vyacheslav G. Turyshev Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Tech-nology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Clifford M. Will University of Florida, Gainesville, USA