Heidelberg 2022 – scientific programme

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GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 2: Classical Theory

GR 2.4: Talk

Monday, March 21, 2022, 17:00–17:20, GR-H2

Relativistic Geodesy: What do we know? — •Dennis Philipp — ZARM, University of Bremen

Geodesy is the science of the properties of our Earth, in particular its gravity field. Conventional geodesy builds on (the concepts of) Newtonian gravity. Thus, at the level of a relativistic theory of gravity, the underlying framework needs to be renewed and basic notions need to be generalized. This opens an entirely new perspective on the matter - chronometric geodesy - which investigates gravity by, e.g., the use of clocks and clock networks. In this talk, I will review the status of the theoretical aspects of relativistic geodesy and address concepts such as the potential, multipole moments, geoid, reference ellipsoid, and height notions in the conventional and in the relativistic framework. Moreover, observables and measurement prescriptions are discussed and an outlook on future developments is given.