Micro-arcsecond light bending by Jupiter

Abstract

The detectors designed for Gaia, the next ESA space astrometry mission to be launched in 2011, will allow to observe repeatedly stars very close to Jupiter's limb. This will open a unique opportunity to test General Relativity by performing many Eddington-like experiments through the comparison between the pattern of a starfield observed with or without Jupiter. We have derived the main formulas relevant for the monopole and quadrupole light deflection by an oblate planet and developed a simulator to investigate the processing of the Gaia astrometric observation in the vicinity of the planet. The results show that such an experiment carried out with the Gaia data will provide a new fully independent determination of the PPN parameter gamma by means of differential astrometric measurements and, more importantly, for the first time will evidence the bending effect due to the quadrupole moment with a 3-sigma confidence level. Given the accuracy of the experiment for the monopole deflection, this will permit to test alternative modelling of the light bending by moving masses.