Perturbations of the orbital elements due to the magnetic-like part of the field of a plane gravitational wave

Abstract

We focus on the secular changes of the orbital elements of a planet in the solar system, determined by the magnetic-like part of a gravitational wave field. Using Fermi coordinates we show that the total force acting on a test particle is made of two contributions: a gravito-electric one and a gravito-magnetic one. While the electric-like force has been thoroughly discussed in the past, the effect of the gravito-magnetic force, which depends on the velocity of the test particle, has not been considered yet. We obtain approximated results to some orders in the orbital eccentricity and show that these effects are much smaller than the corresponding gravito-electric ones.