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Lunar Laser Ranging - a comprehensive probe of post-Newtonian gravity

Kenneth Nordtvedt

gr-qcarXiv:gr-qc/0301024

Abstract

More than 30 years of lunar laser ranging has produced several key tests of gravitational theory, including confirmation that bodies fall in external gravity at rates independent of their internal gravitational binding energy, and that Newton's G is constant to a part in 1012 per year precision. The fitting of LLR data depends on the entire scope of 1/c2 order features of the gravitational equation of motion, including non-linearity, gravitomagnetism, and inductive inertial forces.

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