Post-Newtonian Reference Frames for Advanced Theory of the Lunar Motion and a New Generation of Lunar Laser Ranging

Abstract

We construct a set of post-Newtonian reference frames for a comprehensive study of the orbital dynamics and rotational motion of the Moon and Earth by means of lunar laser ranging (LLR) with the precision of one millimeter. We also derive the post-Newtonian coordinate transformations between the frames and analyze the residual gauge freedom, which is used for removing spurious post-Newtonian effects from the equations of motion of the solar system bodies.