General treatment of orbiting gyroscope precession (Q1590860)

The paper contains a detailed theoretical foundation for the Gravity Probe B experiment (GP-B), in which a gyroscope in a low polar orbit is supposed to precess due to a geodetic effect and a Lense-Thirring effect. The authors review the derivation of the metric for a spinning body of any shape and composition, using both linearized general relativity theory and a transformation argument. They calculate the precession of an orbiting gyroscope described by a Newtonian potential and a vector potential. A multipole analysis of the potentials and the precession equations is made, in terms of the spherical harmonics moments of the density distribution. When applied to the GP-B data, the authors conclude that: -- The effect of the Earth's quadrupole moment on the geodetic precession is large enough to be measured by GP-B, but the effect on the Lense-Thirring precession is beyond the GP-B accuracy. -- The gravitational effect of the Moon and the Sun are too small to be relevant for the respective experiment.