Showing papers by "Roger Penrose published in 2017"

A new laser-ranged satellite for General Relativity and space geodesy: I. An introduction to the LARES2 space experiment

Abstract: We introduce the LARES 2 space experiment recently approved by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The LARES 2 satellite is planned for launch in 2019 with the new VEGA C launch vehicle of ASI, ESA and ELV. The orbital analysis of LARES 2 experiment will be carried out by our international science team of experts in General Relativity, theoretical physics, space geodesy and aerospace engineering. The main objectives of the LARES 2 experiment are gravitational and fundamental physics, including accurate measurements of General Relativity, in particular a test of frame-dragging aimed at achieving an accuracy of a few parts in a thousand, i.e., aimed at improving by about an order of magnitude the present state-of-the-art and forthcoming tests of this general relativistic phenomenon. LARES 2 will also achieve determinations in space geodesy. LARES 2 is an improved version of the LAGEOS 3 experiment, proposed in 1984 to measure frame-dragging and analyzed in 1989 by a joint ASI and NASA study.

A new laser-ranged satellite for General Relativity and space geodesy: III. De Sitter effect and the LARES 2 space experiment

Abstract: In two previous papers we presented the LARES 2 space experiment aimed at a very accurate test of frame-dragging and at other tests of fundamental physics and measurements of space geodesy and geodynamics. We presented the error sources of the LARES 2 experiment, its error budget and Monte Carlo simulations and covariance analyses confirming an accuracy of a few parts in one thousand in the test of frame-dragging. Here we discuss the impact of the orbital perturbation known as the de Sitter effect, or geodetic precession, in the error budget of the LARES 2 frame-dragging experiment. We show that the uncertainty in the de Sitter effect has a negligible impact in the final error budget because of the very accurate results now available for the test of the de Sitter precession and because of its very nature. The total error budget in the LARES 2 test of frame-dragging remains at a level of the order of $$0.2\%$$ , as determined in the first two papers of this series.

Correlated "noise" in LIGO gravitational wave signals: an implication of Conformal Cyclic Cosmology

Abstract: It has recently been reported by Cresswell et al. [1] that correlations in the noise surrounding the observed gravitational wave signals, GW150194, GW151226, and GW170194 were found by the two LIGO detectors in Hanford and Livingston with the same time delay as the signals themselves. This raised some issues about the statistical reliability of the signals themselves, which led to much discussion, the current view appearing to support the contention that there is something unexplained that may be of genuine astrophysical interest [2]. In this note, it is pointed out that a resolution of this puzzle may be found in a proposal very recently put forward by the author [3], see also [4], that what seems to be spuriously generated noise may in fact be gravitational events caused by the decay of dark-matter particles (erebons) of mass around 10^-5g, the existence of such events being a clear implication of the cosmological scheme of conformal cyclic cosmology, or CCC [5], [6]. A brief outline of the salient points of CCC is provided here, especially with regard to its prediction of erebons and their impulsive gravitational signals.