Ignazio Ciufolini, Group of Astrodynamics for the Use of Space Systems (Gauss), Rome and Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

"The LARES and LARES 2 space experiments to test general relativity and frame-dragging"

Abstract: The LAGEOS 3/LARES 2 space experiment was proposed in the eighties by the Physics Department and the Center of Space Research of UT Austin, and by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to test and accurately measure frame-dragging, with strong support of John Archibald Wheeler, director of the Center for Theoretical Physics of UT Austin. Frame-dragging is an intriguing phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity (GR) with fundamental implications in high energy astrophysics and in the generation of gravitational waves by spinning black holes. LAGEOS 3/LARES 2 was then reproposed in 2016 to the Italian Space Agency and to the European Space Agency (ESA) as a technologically much improved version of LAGEOS 3 with the new name LARES 2 (LAres RElativity Satellite 2). It was then successfully launched in July 2022 with the new launching vehicle VEGA C of ASI, ESA and AVIO Space. The LARES satellite of ASI and ESA was successfully launched in 2012 to test general relativity and frame-dragging. We report the state of the art results of LARES and the first results of the LARES 2 space experiment to test GR, frame-dragging and the equivalence principle. The results are in full agreement with the predictions of Einstein’s gravitational theory. Whereas previous results of LARES and Gravity Probe-B already confirmed the frame-dragging predictions of GR, the conceptual simplicity of the LARES 2 experiment, with respect to previous tests of frame-dragging, provides an advance in the field of tests of GR.

Bio: Ignazio Ciufolini, Research associate at GAUSS and Sapienza University of Rome, and former professor of physics at the University of Salento, has dedicated his research to general relativity and its tests. He has published works with the leading experts of general relativity such as John .Archibald Wheeler and Roger Penrose. Among his international awards: The USA PROSE award 1996 (Association of American Publishers) for the best professional book in physics and astronomy (Gravitation and Inertia, with John Wheeler, Princeton University Press, 1995); The Occhialini 2010 Medal by IOP (UK and Ireland Institute of Physics) and SIF; The Tomassoni-Chisesi Award 2001 for Physics of Sapienza, University of Rome.