Frame-dragging

General relativity
${\displaystyle G_{\mu \nu }+\Lambda g_{\mu \nu }={\kappa }T_{\mu \nu }}$
Introduction History Timeline Tests Mathematical formulation
Fundamental concepts Equivalence principle Special relativity World line Pseudo-Riemannian manifold
Phenomena Kepler problem Gravitational lensing Gravitational redshift Gravitational time dilation Gravitational waves Frame-dragging Geodetic effect Event horizon Singularity Black hole Spacetime Spacetime diagrams Minkowski spacetime Einstein–Rosen bridge
Equations Formalisms Equations Linearized gravity Einstein field equations Friedmann Geodesics Mathisson–Papapetrou–Dixon Hamilton–Jacobi–Einstein Formalisms ADM BSSN Post-Newtonian Advanced theory Kaluza–Klein theory Quantum gravity
Solutions Schwarzschild (interior) Reissner–Nordström Einstein–Rosen waves Wormhole Gödel Kerr Kerr–Newman Kerr–Newman–de Sitter Kasner Lemaître–Tolman Taub–NUT Milne Robertson–Walker Oppenheimer–Snyder pp-wave van Stockum dust Weyl−Lewis−Papapetrou Hartle–Thorne
Scientists Einstein Lorentz Hilbert Poincaré Schwarzschild de Sitter Reissner Nordström Weyl Eddington Friedman Milne Zwicky Lemaître Oppenheimer Gödel Wheeler Robertson Bardeen Walker Kerr Chandrasekhar Ehlers Penrose Hawking Raychaudhuri Taylor Hulse van Stockum Taub Newman Yau Thorne others
Physics portal  Category
v t e

Frame-dragging is an effect on spacetime, predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, that is due to non-static stationary distributions of mass–energy. A stationary field is one that is in a steady state, but the masses causing that field may be non-static ⁠— rotating, for instance. More generally, the subject that deals with the effects caused by mass–energy currents is known as gravitoelectromagnetism, which is analogous to the magnetism of classical electromagnetism.

The first frame-dragging effect was derived in 1918, in the framework of general relativity, by the Austrian physicists Josef Lense and Hans Thirring, and is also known as the Lense–Thirring effect.^[1][2][3] They predicted that the rotation of a massive object would distort the spacetime metric, making the orbit of a nearby test particle precess. This does not happen in Newtonian mechanics for which the gravitational field of a body depends only on its mass, not on its rotation. The Lense–Thirring effect is very small – about one part in a few trillion. To detect it, it is necessary to examine a very massive object, or build an instrument that is very sensitive.

In 2015, new general-relativistic extensions of Newtonian rotation laws were formulated to describe geometric dragging of frames which incorporates a newly discovered antidragging effect.^[4]