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# Gauge Symmetry and Gravito-Electromagnetism

## 1. Introduction

Einstein’s theory of gravitation remains a pinnacle in the evolution of theoretical physics. It offers an overarching description of phenomena ranging from the familiar behaviour of Newtonian gravitation to exotic astrophysical events at the extremes of space and time. Although its modern formulation is in terms of tensor fields on a manifold with a spacetime structure, its physical interpretation often benefits from a choice of observer and an appropriate reference frame. One of the traditional methods for extracting information from Einstein’s gravitational field equations is to exploit the properties of observers in some fiducial background spacetime in which gravitational physics is either absent or familiar. This approach has led to various approximation in such backgrounds. Further reduction is afforded by a “3+1” decomposition in which spacetime tensors are expressed in terms of a field of frames adapted to some local foliation of spacetime by spacelike hypersurfaces. More generally frames are afforded by timelike vector fields, the integral curves of which model ideal observers. In such a manner it becomes possible to contemplate different limits in which matter moves slowly or the gravitational field is weak relative to such observers. It is known that Newtonian gravitation follows from such a limit. Within the framework of weak gravity non-Newtonian gravitational effects may arise and a number of experiments have been devised in order to detect such phenomena as the “Lense-Thirring effect” due to “frame-dragging” produced by the earth’s rotation , , , . The nature of this effect may be detectable by a small orbiting gyroscope and is analogous to that produced by the torque on a small magnetic dipole in the presence of the magnetic field of a fixed magnetic dipole. Indeed the component of weak gravity (additional to the dominant Newtonian gravitational field) responsible for this effect is now referred to as the gravito-magnetic field. The sensitivity of recently developed rotation sensors may also be increased to detect post-Newtonian effects in the future .

Several authors , , , , , , , , , ,  have noticed that a subset of the Einstein equations when perturbed about flat spacetime can be written in a form that looks remarkably similar to Maxwell’s equations with the Newtonian gravitational field corresponding to the gravito-electric field and mass-currents playing the role of electric currents. Since the laws of electromagnetism are well studied and understood this analogy has proved quite fruitful in the gravito-electromagnetic context particularly in astrophysical applications. Extended “astrophysical jet-structures” are now thought to have their origin in gravito-electromagnetic forces. In  the details of astrophysical lensing have been explored in terms of parameters in the NUT metric.

It is also amusing to recall that one of the first theories of post-Newtonian gravitation was formulated by Heaviside in direct analogy with the then recently formulated theory of electromagnetism by Maxwell. In the language of the Poincaré isometry group it predicted that gravitation like electromagnetism was mediated by an independent vector field rather than a second degree tensor field associated with the metric of spacetime. This difference of course must imply that any analogy between weak gravity and electromagnetism is incomplete and most derivations of the gravito-electromagnetic field equations take care to point this out. However in our view the caveats are themselves often incomplete and a close examination of various derivations of the gravito-electromagnetic equations display significant differences in detail. The difficulty in making objective comparisons often arises due to the implicit use of a particular coordinate system (usually adapted to a flat spacetime background) or a partial gauge fixing. Indeed the question of the gauge transformations induced on the gravito-electromagnetic fields from the underlying gauge covariance of the perturbative Einstein equations is usually dealt with rather cursorily. This leads one to contemplate the most useful way to define the gravito-electromagnetic fields in terms of the perturbed components of the spacetime metric. Different choices are often responsible for the location of odd factors of 4 that permeate the gravito-electromagnetic equations compared with the Maxwell equations. Such choices also have implications for the form of the induced gravito-electromagnetic Lorentz force (and torque) in terms of the gravito-electromagnetic fields that enter into the equation for the motion of a massive point (spinning) particle. In  gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations are discussed from a perspective different from the one presented in this paper. Here such transformations are explicitly related to the gauge symmetry of perturbative gravitation and the definitions of gravito-electromagnetic fields in turn induce the notions of gravito-magnetic and gravito-electric coupling strengths.

In this article a tensor description of perturbative Einsteinian gravity about an arbitrary background spacetime is first constructed. By analogy with the covariant laws of electromagnetism in spacetime gravito-electromagnetic potentials and fields are then defined to emulate electromagnetic gauge transformations under substitutions belonging to the gauge symmetry group of perturbative gravitation. These definitions have the advantage that on a flat background, with the aid of a covariantly constant timelike vector field, a subset of the linearised gravitational field equations can be written in a form that is fully analogous to Maxwell’s equations (without awkward factors of 4 and extraneous tensor fields. It is shown how the remaining equations in the perturbed gravitational system restrict the time dependence of solutions to these equations and thereby prohibit the existence of propagating vector fields. The induced gravito-electromagnetic Lorentz force on a test particle is evaluated by geodesic perturbation in terms of these fields together with the torque on a small gyroscope. It is concluded that the analogy of perturbative gravity to Maxwell’s description of electromagnetism can be valuable for (quasi-) stationary gravitational phenomena but that the analogy has its limitations. It has been argued that such limitations are absent in the approach to gravito-electromagnetic based on properties of the conformal tensor in a spacetime determined by Einstein’s equations. Although this reformulation makes no reference to perturbative methods the analogy with the structure of Maxwell’s equations is less direct. A tensorial description of this formulation is given in Appendix D. Throughout this article the language of tensor fields as multi-linear maps on vector and co-vector fields is adopted. Co-vector fields are manipulated using the exterior calculus of differential forms and Hodge maps. Manifolds are assumed smooth and tensor fields sufficiently differentiable as required. Notations based on the tools used are summarised in Appendix A and some technical computational details are relegated to Appendices B and C. In order to facilitate comparisons with other authors certain field redefinitions are discussed in section 7 together with the changes induced by them in the gravito-electromagnetic field equations. These alternatives are discussed in the concluding section where the salient features of this paper are summarised.

## 2. The Maxwell Equations

Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic field can be written concisely (in a general spacetime with metric tensor $`g`$) in terms of the Faraday 2-form $`F`$ and current 1-form $`𝒥`$ on spacetime:

$$\mathrm{d}F=0,$$
(2.1a)
$$\delta F=𝒥.$$
(2.1b)
Equation (2.1a) implies that in a regular domain

$$F=\mathrm{d}A$$
(2.2)
for some $`1`$-form potential $`A`$, and $`F`$ clearly remains invariant under electromagnetic gauge transformations of $`A`$ which take the form

$$AA+\mathrm{d}\lambda ,$$
(2.3)
where $`\lambda `$ is an arbitrary smooth function on spacetime. Equation (2.1b) implies that the current is conserved

$$\delta 𝒥=0.$$
(2.4)
In terms of $`A`$, (2.1a) may be written

$$\mathrm{\Delta }A+\mathrm{d}\delta A=𝒥,$$
(2.5)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=(\delta \mathrm{d}+\mathrm{d}\delta )`$. In the Lorenz gauge defined by the condition

$$\delta A=0,$$
(2.6)
this reduces to the Helmholtz wave equation

$$\mathrm{\Delta }A=𝒥.$$
(2.7)
The equation of motion for a (spinless) test particle with mass $`m`$ and charge $`q`$ moving along a curve $`C(\tau )`$, parameterized by proper-time $`\tau `$, with tangent vector $`C^{}(\tau )`$, in an arbitrary gravitational field and electromagnetic field $`F`$ is

$$m_C^{}C^{}+q\left(\mathrm{i}_C^{}F\right)^{\mathrm{}}=0,$$
(2.8)
where $``$ is the Levi-Civita connection associated with $`g`$. The Lorentz force $`𝔽_\mathrm{L}`$ is defined by

$$𝔽_\mathrm{L}=q\left(\mathrm{i}_C^{}F\right)^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(2.9)
One can decompose $`F`$ with respect to some unit-normalized timelike111Such a vector satisfies $`g(V,V)=1`$ with the choice of signature for $`g`$ chosen throughout this article. vector field $`V`$ as

$$F=V^{\mathrm{}}𝐞+\mathrm{\#}𝐛,$$
(2.10)
where $`\mathrm{i}_V𝐞=0`$ and $`\mathrm{i}_V\mathrm{\#}𝐛=0`$. Similarly one may decompose $`𝒥`$ as

$$𝒥=\rho V^{\mathrm{}}+𝐣$$
(2.11)
where $`\mathrm{i}_V𝐣=0`$. Ideal observers may be associated with the integral curves of $`V`$.

The Maxwell field equations (2.1a) and (2.1b) can then be written in (3+1)-form in terms of $`𝐞`$, $`𝐛`$ and $`V`$ as

$$𝐝_V\mathrm{\#}𝐛+𝛀_V𝐞=0,$$
(2.12a)
$$𝐃_V𝐞+𝓛_V\mathrm{\#}𝐛=0,$$
(2.12b)
$$𝐝_V\mathrm{\#}𝐞𝛀_V𝐛=\rho \mathrm{\#}1,$$
(2.12c)
$$𝐃_V𝐛𝓛_V\mathrm{\#}𝐞=\mathrm{\#}𝐣,$$
(2.12d)
where the notation is given in the Appendix A. Such equations exhibit possible “pseudo-sources” measured by non-inertial observers associated with non-parallel vector fields $`V`$.

When $`V`$ is a parallel vector field (e.g. associated with an observer defining an inertial frame in flat spacetime) these reduce to the familiar Maxwell equations relating electromagnetic fields to their sources written in terms of differential forms . The metric tensor permits one to define the vector fields: $`𝐄=𝐞^{\mathrm{}}`$, $`𝐁=𝐛^{\mathrm{}}`$, $`𝐉=𝐣^{\mathrm{}}`$, and (for $`V`$ parallel) the Maxwell equations take their more familiar form

$$\mathrm{div}𝐁=0,$$
(2.13a)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐄+\frac{𝐁}{t}=0,$$
(2.13b)
$$\mathrm{div}𝐄=\rho ,$$
(2.13c)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐁\frac{𝐄}{t}=𝐉.$$
(2.13d)
Similarly decomposing the 4-velocity $`C^{}`$ with respect to some (unit timelike parallel) vector field $`V`$ as

$$C^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1𝐠(𝐯,𝐯)}}(V+𝐯),$$
(2.14)
and assuming that the magnitude of $`𝐯`$ is small ($`v^2=𝐠(𝐯,𝐯)1`$),

$$C^{}=V+𝐯+O(v^2),$$
(2.15)
the equation of motion for a charged non-relativistic particle becomes

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝐯}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{q}{m}(𝐄+𝐯\times 𝐁).$$
(2.16)
## 3. Perturbative Gravitation

The analogy between gravitation and electromagnetism to be discussed follows from a perturbation of the gravitational field about some “background” spacetime geometry. We explore the constraints on this geometry in order to execute this analogy to its fullest extent.

### 3.1. The Perturbed Einstein Equations

A perturbative approach to Einstein’s theory of gravitation can be based on a formal linearization of spacetime geometry about that determined by some solution of Einstein’s equations for the spacetime metric tensor. A generic perturbation will be identified with a class of linearizations that belong to the tangent space to the space of Einstein solutions. Following  it is convenient to introduce a 5-dimensional manifold $``$ that can be foliated by hypersurfaces belonging to a one parameter ($`ϵ`$) family of spacetimes. The geometry of each leaf $`M_ϵ`$ of the foliation is determined by some second degree symmetric tensor field $`g(ϵ)`$ on $``$ where $`ϵ[1,1]`$ that restricts to a Lorentzian metric tensor field on each leaf. Furthermore it is asserted that all points of one leaf can be connected to all points on a neighbouring leaf by a one parameter diffeomorphism $`\phi _ϵ:`$. Thus a tensor field $`T(0)`$ on $`M_0`$ can be related to a tensor field $`T(ϵ)`$ on $`M_ϵ`$ according to

$$\widehat{\phi }_ϵT(ϵ)=T(0)+ϵ\dot{T}_𝒱+O(ϵ^2)$$
(3.1)
where, for some nowhere vanishing vector field $`𝒱`$ that is nowhere tangent to the spacetime leaves in $``$,

$$\phi _ϵ=\mathrm{exp}(ϵ𝒱)$$
(3.2)
induces $`\widehat{\phi }_ϵ`$ on tensors and

$$\dot{T}_𝒱=_𝒱T(ϵ)|_{ϵ=0}.$$
(3.3)
In a local chart with coordinates $`\{x^\mu ,ϵ\}`$ adapted to the foliation one may write:

$$𝒱=\frac{}{ϵ}+\xi ^\mu (x)\frac{}{x^\mu }.$$
(3.4)
The tensor $`\dot{T}_𝒱`$ is said to be a linearization of $`T(ϵ)`$ about $`T(0)`$ with respect to a choice of the vector field $`𝒱`$. Since the leaves $`M_ϵ`$ are diffeomorphic it is natural to identify points on distinct leaves that lie on the same integral curve of $`𝒱`$. Different choices of $`𝒱`$ correspond to different identifications. If $`\dot{T}_{𝒱_1}`$ and $`\dot{T}_{𝒱_2}`$ are distinct linearizations then by construction their difference is generated by a vector field $`X`$ on $`M_0`$:

$$\dot{T}_{𝒱_1}\dot{T}_{𝒱_2}=\dot{T}_{𝒱_1}+_XT(0).$$
(3.5)
This may be called a gauge transformation of $`\dot{T}_{𝒱_1}`$ induced by $`X`$. If $`_XT(0)=0`$ for all $`X`$ then $`T(ϵ)`$ is gauge invariant. In general there is no preferred positive (or negative) definite metric on $`M_0`$ that enables one to assign a natural norm to quantities that are not gauge invariant in this sense.

Linearized gravity proceeds by writing the covariant physical metric tensor $`g(ϵ)`$ field so that:

$$\widehat{\phi }_ϵg(ϵ)=g(0)+ϵ\dot{g}_𝒱+O(ϵ^2)$$
(3.6)
By common abuse of notation this is simply written;

$$\widehat{g}=g+h$$
(3.7)
where $`h`$ is of order $`ϵ`$ and higher order terms in $`ϵ`$ are subsequently neglected. This abbreviated notation hides the choice of $`𝒱`$ in the definition of $`h`$ and an alternative choice arises from the gauge transformation

$$hh+ϵ_Xg$$
(3.8)
for any vector field $`X`$ on the spacetime with background metric $`g`$. Similarly we introduce the abbreviated notation $`\widehat{T}=\widehat{\phi }_ϵT(ϵ)`$, $`T=T(0)`$, $`\dot{T}=ϵ\dot{T}_𝒱`$, for some tensor $`T`$ (thus $`\dot{T}`$ is of order $`ϵ`$).

The contravariant physical metric tensor field $`\widehat{G}`$ can be similarly written in terms of the induced contravariant background metric tensor $`G`$ and a contravariant perturbation tensor $`H`$

$$\widehat{G}=G+H.$$
(3.9)
In a smooth local basis of vector fields on spacetime $`\{X_a\}`$, with dual cobasis $`\{e^b\}`$ such that $`e^b(X_a)=\delta ^b_a`$ for $`a=0,1,2,3`$, the induced perturbation tensor $`H`$ can be written as

$$H=h_{ab}X^aX^b$$
(3.10)
with $`g_{ac}g^{cb}=\delta ^b_a`$ (where $`g^{ab}`$ are the components of $`G`$ in the above cobasis) and $`X^a=g^{ab}X_b`$. The metric-dual of vector and 1-form fields, and the associated raising and lowering of indices are defined with respect to the background metric tensor. Likewise any operations that depend on the metric tensor (e.g. the Hodge map) will be defined with respect to the background metric unless indicated otherwise.

To derive the perturbed Einstein tensor in terms of $`h`$ (in some gauge) write the Levi-Civita connection $`\widehat{}`$ with respect to the physical metric $`\widehat{g}`$ in terms of the Levi-Civita connection $``$ with respect to $`g`$ so that for any vector field $`X`$ on spacetime:

$$\widehat{}_X=_X+𝜸_X,$$
(3.11)
Since $`\widehat{}`$ and $``$ are torsion free

$$𝜸_XY=𝜸_YX,$$
(3.12)
for arbitrary vector fields $`X`$ and $`Y`$. It follows that

$$𝜸_Xf=0,$$
(3.13)
for any function $`f`$ on spacetime. It is convenient to define a tensor $`\gamma `$ by

$$\gamma (X,Y,\alpha )=\alpha (𝜸_XY),$$
(3.14)
for any 1-form $`\alpha `$, then

$$𝜸_XY=\gamma (X,Y,)$$
(3.15)
and

$$𝜸_X\alpha =\gamma (X,,\alpha ).$$
(3.16)
Since $`\widehat{}`$ and $``$ are compatible with respect to $`\widehat{g}`$ and $`g`$ respectively $`\gamma `$ can be written in terms of $`h`$ as

$$\gamma (X,Y,\alpha )=\frac{1}{2}\{(_Xh)(Y,\alpha ^{\mathrm{}})+(_Yh)(X,\alpha ^{\mathrm{}})(_\alpha ^{\mathrm{}}h)(X,Y)\},$$
(3.17)
for arbitrary $`X`$, $`Y`$ and $`\alpha `$.

The curvature operators $`\widehat{𝐑}`$ and $`𝐑`$ for the connections $`\widehat{}`$ and $``$ respectively are defined in the usual manner as

$$\widehat{𝐑}_{XY}=[\widehat{}_X,\widehat{}_Y]\widehat{}_{[X,Y]},$$
(3.18a)
$$𝐑_{XY}=[_X,_Y]_{[X,Y]}.$$
(3.18b)
Thus

$$\widehat{𝐑}_{XY}=𝐑_{XY}+\dot{𝐑}_{XY},$$
(3.19)
and it follows that the perturbed curvature operator $`\dot{𝐑}`$ is given by

$$\dot{𝐑}_{XY}=_X𝜸_Y_Y𝜸_X+𝜸_X_Y𝜸_Y_X𝜸_{[X,Y]}.$$
(3.20)
When acting on any vector field $`Z`$ this simplifies to

$$\dot{𝐑}_{XY}Z=(_X\gamma )(Y,Z,)(_Y\gamma )(X,Z,),$$
(3.21)
and the perturbed curvature tensor $`\dot{R}`$ is defined by

$$\dot{R}(X,Y,Z,\alpha )=\alpha (\dot{𝐑}_{XY}Z)=(_X\gamma )(Y,Z,\alpha )(_Y\gamma )(X,Z,\alpha ).$$
(3.22)
The perturbed Ricci tensor $`\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}`$ follows by contraction

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}(X,Y)=\dot{R}(X_a,X,Y,e^a).$$
(3.23)
It is useful to introduce the trace-reverse map $`\mu `$ on covariant degree 2 tensors so that

$$\mu (T)=T\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(T)g$$
(3.24)
where $`\mathrm{Tr}(T)=T(X_a,X^a)`$ in any basis. The trace-reverse of $`h`$ is denoted by $`\psi `$:

$$\psi =\mu (h).$$
(3.25)
After some calculation $`\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}`$ can be written in terms of $`\psi `$ and the Laplacian operator $`\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}=`$ as

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}=\frac{1}{2}\mu (\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi )+\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}\psi 𝒞_\psi +𝒮_\psi ,$$
(3.26)
where

$$𝒞_\psi (X,Y)=R(X_a,X,Y,\psi ^a),$$
(3.27a)
$$𝒮_\psi (X,Y)=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(\psi _X^{\mathrm{}},Y)+\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(\psi _Y^{\mathrm{}},X))$$
(3.27b)
and the convenient notation

$$\psi _X=\psi (X,),$$
(3.28a)
$$\psi ^a=\psi _{X^a}=\psi (X^a,)$$
(3.28b)
is used.

Note that $`𝒞_\psi `$ and $`𝒮_\psi `$ have the same trace, namely

$$\mathrm{Tr}(𝒞_\psi )=\mathrm{Tr}(𝒮_\psi )=\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(\psi _a^{\mathrm{}},X^a).$$
(3.29)
The perturbed curvature scalar $`\dot{}`$ follows as

$$\dot{}=\mathrm{Tr}(\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}𝒮_\psi +\frac{1}{2}\psi ),$$
(3.30)
and with $`\widehat{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}=\widehat{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}\frac{1}{2}\widehat{g}\widehat{}=\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}+\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}`$ the perturbed Einstein tensor $`\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}`$ is

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}=\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}\frac{1}{2}h\frac{1}{2}\dot{}g,$$
(3.31)
or

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi +\mu (\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}\psi )\mu (𝒞_\psi )+𝒮_\psi \frac{1}{2}\psi $$
(3.32)
in terms of $`\psi `$.

One may now express the perturbed Einstein equation in terms of $`\psi `$ by writing the physical stress energy-momentum tensor $`\widehat{𝒯}`$ as

$$\widehat{𝒯}=𝒯+\dot{𝒯},$$
(3.33)
where the background stress energy-momentum tensor $`𝒯`$ acts as a source for the background metric via the background Einstein equation

$$\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}=\kappa 𝒯,$$
(3.34)
and $`\kappa =8\pi G`$ in units where $`c=1`$. The perturbed Einstein equation

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}=\kappa \dot{𝒯},$$
(3.35)
becomes

$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi +\mu (\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}\psi )\mu (𝒞_\psi )+𝒮_\psi \frac{1}{2}\psi =\kappa \dot{𝒯}.$$
(3.36)
In the next section this equation is simplified by exploiting a gauge symmetry of the Einstein equations.

### 3.2. Gauge Transformations and the Transverse Gauge Condition

A gauge transform of $`h`$ has been defined as a substitution of the form

$$hh+_Vg,$$
(3.37)
where $`_V`$ is the Lie derivative with respect to some vector field $`V`$ that maintains $`h`$ perturbative with respect to $`g`$. This substitution is used to determine the induced gauge transformation of tensors defined in terms of $`h`$ (keeping the background geometry fixed). Thus the induced gauge transformation of $`𝜸_X`$ follows as

$$𝜸_X𝜸_X+𝒟_X(V),$$
(3.38)
where, for any vector field $`X`$ the tensor derivation $`𝒟_X(V)`$ is defined by

$$𝒟_X(V)=[_V,_X]_{_VX}.$$
(3.39)
The operator $`𝒟_X(V)`$ provides a useful tool when performing calculations involving both Lie derivatives and covariant derivatives ().

It follows that the perturbed curvature operator transforms as

$$\dot{𝐑}_{XY}\dot{𝐑}_{XY}+_{XY}(V),$$
(3.40)
where the operator $`_{XY}(V)`$ is defined by

$$_{XY}(V)=[_V,𝐑_{XY}]𝐑_{_VXY}𝐑_{X_VY}.$$
(3.41)
A contraction shows that the perturbed curvature tensor transforms as

$$\dot{R}\dot{R}+_VR,$$
(3.42)
from which one deduces

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}}+_V\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}$$
(3.43)
and

$$\dot{}\dot{}+_V.$$
(3.44)
It follows that the perturbed Einstein tensor exhibits the induced gauge transformation

$$\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}+_V\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}.$$
(3.45)
This behaviour of $`\stackrel{\mathbf{.}}{\mathrm{𝐄𝐢𝐧}}`$ dictates the behaviour of any (phenomenological) stress energy-momentum tensor under an induced gauge transformation in order to maintain the gauge covariance of (3.35).

It can be similarly shown that if $`\psi \overline{\psi }=\psi +\mu (_Vg)`$ the divergence of $`\psi `$ transforms as

$$\psi \overline{\psi }=\psi +\left(\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}V\right)^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(V,).$$
(3.46)
Thus, if for some $`\psi `$, one chooses $`V`$ to satisfy the differential equation

$$\left(\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}V\right)^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(V,)=\psi ,$$
(3.47)
then this imposes the gauge condition

$$\overline{\psi }=0,$$
(3.48)
referred to as the transverse gauge. Further gauge transformations, generated by additional vector fields $`W`$ satisfying the linear differential equation

$$\left(\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}W\right)^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(W,)=0,$$
(3.49)
maintain $`\overline{\psi }`$ divergenceless.

In the transverse gauge the perturbed Einstein equation immediately simplifies to

$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi \mu (𝒞_\psi )+𝒮_\psi \frac{1}{2}\psi =\kappa \dot{𝒯}.$$
(3.50)
It should be noted that this equation holds in any (background) metric that satisfies the (background) Einstein equation (3.34).

In the case where the background metric is Ricci-flat (or has a cosmological constant), the perturbed Einstein equation simplifies to

$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi 𝒞_\psi =\kappa \dot{𝒯}$$
(3.51)
which may be compared with the component form  and the abstract index form .

If the background metric is flat this simplifies further to

$$\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi =2\kappa \dot{𝒯}.$$
(3.52)
This equation is analogous to the Helmholtz equation for the electromagnetic potential 1-form in the electromagnetic Lorenz gauge and leads to the prediction of propagating gravitational perturbations.

## 4. Gravito-Electromagnetism

The perturbed Einstein equation about a flat background spacetime metric has a form that is similar to the Helmholtz equation for the electromagnetic potential. However the perturbed gravitational potential $`\psi `$ is a symmetric type (2,0) tensor field, whereas the electromagnetic potential $`A`$ is a type (1,0) tensor field (a 1-form). The description of Maxwell’s equations in terms of electric and magnetic fields suggests that $`\psi `$ be decomposed relative to some fiducial vector field and split into a frame dependent 1-form (analogous to the 1-form potential in electromagnetism) plus an extra non-Maxwellian tensor field. We motivate this definition by inducing a gauge transformation described above on this 1-form and comparing the result with the structure of the electromagnetic gauge transformation (Section 2) of the 1-form potential. This will also show that restrictions must be placed on the fiducial vector field if a close analogy with electromagnetism is to hold.

### 4.1. Gravito-Electromagnetic Gauge Transformations

The trace-reversed perturbation $`\psi `$ can be written, relative to some unit-normalized (to zero order in $`ϵ`$) timelike vector field $`\xi `$, ($`g(\xi ,\xi )=1+O(ϵ)`$) and general background metric tensor $`g`$ as

$$\psi =\varphi _\xi g\psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}\psi _\xi 𝚺_\xi .$$
(4.1)
The tensor $`\psi `$ has been split into a 1-form part
$$\psi _\xi =\psi (\xi ,),$$
(4.2a)
with $`\xi `$ component
$$\varphi _\xi =\psi _\xi (\xi )=\psi (\xi ,\xi ),$$
(4.2b)
and a spacelike tensor part $`𝚺_\xi `$ satisfying
$$𝚺_\xi (\xi ,)=0.$$
(4.2c)
Since

$$\psi \psi +\mu (_Vg)$$
(4.3)
under a gauge transformation $`hh+_Vg`$ generated by $`V,`$ a contraction with $`\xi `$ gives

$$\psi _\xi \psi _\xi +\mathrm{d}(g(\xi ,V))+\mathrm{i}_V\mathrm{d}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}V\xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\left(_\xi V\right)^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(4.4)
With a special choice for $`V`$ of the form

$$V=\lambda \xi ,$$
(4.5)
where $`\lambda `$ is any smooth function of order $`ϵ`$ on spacetime, the induced transformation on the 1-form $`\psi _\xi `$ becomes

$$\psi _\xi \psi _\xi +\mathrm{d}\lambda +\lambda (\mathrm{\Theta }_\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝓐_\xi ^{\mathrm{}}),$$
(4.6)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }_\xi `$ is the expansion of $`\xi `$ and $`𝓐_\xi `$ is its acceleration (Appendix A). If $`\lambda (\mathrm{\Theta }_\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝓐_\xi ^{\mathrm{}})`$ is of higher order in $`ϵ`$ than $`\lambda `$ the last term can be neglected and the gauge transformation of $`\psi _\xi `$ simplifies to

$$\psi _\xi \psi _\xi +\mathrm{d}\lambda .$$
(4.7)
This suggests that $`\psi _\xi `$ be interpreted as the analogue of the 1-form potential $`A`$ in electromagnetism and henceforth $`\psi _\xi `$ will be referred to as the gravito-electromagnetic $`1`$-form potential.

Similarly, projecting (4.3) with $`𝚷_\xi `$ (Appendix A) one finds

$$𝚺_\xi 𝚺_\xi 𝚷_\xi _Vg+2(V+g(\xi ,_\xi V))𝐠_\xi .$$
(4.8)
Hence with $`V`$ as in (4.5), $`𝚺_\xi `$ transforms as

$$𝚺_\xi 𝚺_\xi +2\lambda (𝝈_\xi \frac{2}{3}\mathrm{\Theta }_\xi 𝐠_\xi ),$$
(4.9)
where $`𝝈_\xi `$ is the shear of $`\xi `$ (Appendix A). If $`\lambda (𝝈_\xi \frac{2}{3}\mathrm{\Theta }_\xi 𝐠_\xi )`$ is of higher order in $`ϵ`$ than $`𝚺_\xi `$ the last term is negligible and $`𝚺_\xi `$ is gauge invariant under such transformations.

The class of gauge transformations generated by $`\lambda \xi `$ such that $`\psi _\xi `$ transforms as in (4.7) with $`𝚺_\xi `$ invariant will be said to contain gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations. Clearly if $`\xi `$ is parallel (i.e. $`\xi =0`$), or parallel to zero order in $`ϵ`$ (since $`\lambda `$ is of order $`ϵ`$), such transformations are guaranteed to be gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations. For a given $`h`$ one may therefore define a class of vector fields $`\{\xi \}`$, members of which are equivalent if they can be used to generate gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations. Such fields will be said to define gravito-electromagnetic frames of reference. Not all background spacetimes will permit the existence of such vector fields (e.g. the black-hole Schwarzschild spacetime), however they are guaranteed to exist in Minkowski spacetime (and interestingly also in the Einstein static universe). In the next section these vector fields will be used to define a class of gauge equivalent gravito-electromagnetic fields.

### 4.2. The Gravito-Electromagnetic Field Equations

On a flat background the linearized Einstein equation can be written as

$$\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\psi =2\kappa \dot{𝒯},$$
(4.10)
where the transverse gauge condition

$$\psi =0,$$
(4.11)
has been imposed. Contracting (4.10) with a unit-normalized timelike vector field $`\xi `$ that can be used to define gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations gives

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\psi _\xi =2\kappa 𝒥_\xi ,$$
(4.12)
where the mass-current $`𝒥_\xi `$ is defined by

$$𝒥_\xi =\dot{𝒯}(\xi ,).$$
(4.13)
Contracting (4.12) on $`\xi `$ gives

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _\xi =2\kappa \rho _\xi ,$$
(4.14)
where the mass-density $`\rho _\xi `$ is defined by

$$\rho _\xi =𝒥_\xi (\xi )=\dot{𝒯}(\xi ,\xi ).$$
(4.15)
Similarly acting on (4.10) with the projection operator $`𝚷_\xi `$ and using (4.1)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi _\xi 𝐠_\xi \mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}𝚺_\xi =2\kappa \dot{𝓣}_\xi .$$
(4.16)
With the aid of (4.14) this becomes

$$\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}𝚺_\xi =2\kappa (\dot{𝓣}_\xi \rho _\xi 𝐠_\xi ),$$
(4.17)
where $`\dot{𝓣}_\xi `$ is the spacelike (with respect to $`\xi `$), part of the stress energy-momentum tensor

$$\dot{𝓣}_\xi =𝚷_\xi \dot{𝒯}.$$
(4.18)
The gravito-electromagnetic analogue of the Faraday 2-form is now defined as

$$_\xi =\mathrm{d}\psi _\xi ,$$
(4.19)
hence

$$\mathrm{d}_\xi =0.$$
(4.20)
The tensor $`_\xi `$ is invariant under transformations in the class of gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformation defined above. The gravito-electric field $`𝓔_\xi `$, and the gravito-magnetic field $`𝓑_\xi `$ follow from a (3+1)-split (with respect to $`\xi `$):

$$_\xi =\xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝓔_\xi +\mathrm{\#}𝓑_\xi .$$
(4.21)
With $`\psi _\xi `$ written in terms of its timelike and spacelike parts:

$$\psi _\xi =\varphi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}+𝚿_\xi ,$$
(4.22)
where $`\mathrm{i}_\xi 𝚿_\xi =0`$, one can write the gravito-electric field as

$$𝓔_\xi =𝐝_\xi \varphi _\xi 𝓛_\xi 𝚿_\xi ,$$
(4.23a)
and the gravito-magnetic field as
$$𝓑_\xi =\mathrm{\#}𝐝_\xi 𝚿_\xi $$
(4.23b)
in terms of the gravito-electromagnetic potential. The mass-current can be similarly split into its timelike and spacelike parts with respect to $`\xi `$ as

$$𝒥_\xi =\rho _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}+𝐉_\xi ,$$
(4.24)
where $`\mathrm{i}_\xi 𝐉_\xi =0`$ .

The transverse gauge condition in terms of $`\xi `$, $`\psi _\xi `$, $`\varphi _\xi `$ and $`𝚺_\xi `$ is:

$$\psi =\delta \psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{d}\varphi _\xi _\xi \psi _\xi 𝚺_\xi _{\psi _\xi ^{\mathrm{}}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\Theta }_\xi \psi _\xi =0.$$
(4.25)
For a gravito-electromagnetic frame $`\xi `$ ($`\xi =0`$ to order $`ϵ`$) this reduces to

$$\psi =\delta \psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{d}\varphi _\xi _\xi \psi _\xi 𝚺_\xi =0.$$
(4.26)
Using (4.22), (A.19) and (A.30) it follows that $`\mathrm{d}\varphi _\xi _\xi \psi _\xi =𝐝_\xi \varphi _\xi 𝓛_\xi 𝚿_\xi =𝓔_\xi `$, hence

$$\psi =(\delta \psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}})+(𝓔_\xi 𝚺_\xi )=0.$$
(4.27)
The two bracketed terms are orthogonal so the transverse gauge condition is equivalent to the two equations

$$\delta \psi _\xi =0,$$
(4.28a)
$$𝓔_\xi =𝚺_\xi .$$
(4.28b)
The first condition is analogous to the Lorenz gauge in electromagnetism, while the second condition has no electromagnetic analogue. The consequences of this second condition are explored below.

The equation (4.28a) implies (Appendix A) that (4.12) takes the Maxwell-like covariant form

$$\delta _\xi =2\kappa 𝒥_\xi .$$
(4.29)
The perturbative part of the stress energy-momentum tensor may be expressed in terms of the mass-current using (4.13), (4.15) and (4.18) as

$$\dot{𝒯}=\rho _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝒥_\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝒥_\xi +\dot{𝓣}_\xi ,$$
(4.30)
and since the background source is assumed zero ($`𝒯=0`$) the divergence condition becomes

$$\dot{𝒯}=0$$
(4.31)
hence

$$(\delta 𝒥_\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}})(_\xi 𝐉_\xi \dot{𝓣}_\xi )=0.$$
(4.32)
Since the two bracketed terms are orthogonal one has:

$$\delta 𝒥_\xi =0,$$
(4.33a)
$$_\xi 𝐉_\xi =\dot{𝓣}_\xi .$$
(4.33b)
with the first condition expressing the conservation of mass-current in the background geometry.

The field equation (4.29) and the closure of $`_\xi `$ (4.20) can now be written in terms of these decompositions:

$$𝐝_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓑_\xi =0,$$
(4.34a)
$$𝐝_\xi 𝓔_\xi +𝓛_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓑_\xi =0,$$
(4.34b)
$$𝐝_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓔_\xi =2\kappa \rho _\xi \mathrm{\#}1,$$
(4.34c)
$$𝐝_\xi 𝓑_\xi 𝓛_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓔_\xi =2\kappa \mathrm{\#}𝐉_\xi .$$
(4.34d)
Although the equations (4.34) involving the gravitational field have the mathematical structure of Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism the two theories are not isomorphic since the gravitational fields must additionally satisfy (4.28b) in the transverse gauge. Not all solutions of Maxwell’s equations translate to perturbative gravitational fields that are compatible with this condition for a given $`𝚺_\xi `$. There does exist however a class of compatible solutions. Such solutions $`\psi `$ are characterized by the existence of a gauge in which

$$\psi =0,$$
(4.35a)
$$𝚷_\xi \psi =0,$$
(4.35b)
in some gravito-electromagnetic frame $`\xi `$ (Section 4.1). In this case such solutions will be said to belong to the gravito-electromagnetic limit. It follows from equation (4.1) that

$$𝚺_\xi =\varphi _\xi 𝐠_\xi .$$
(4.36)
Such a $`\xi `$ will not be unique. If $`\zeta =\xi +𝐯`$, such that $`g(\zeta ,\zeta )=1`$ and $`v^2=g(𝐯,𝐯)1`$, then $`𝚷_\zeta \psi `$ is of order $`vϵ`$. Hence if $`vϵ`$, $`\zeta `$ also defines the gravito-electromagnetic limit. However the fields ($`\psi _\zeta `$, $`𝚺_\zeta `$, $`𝓔_\zeta `$, $`𝓑_\zeta `$ ) defined with respect to $`\zeta `$ are identical (within this approximation) to the corresponding fields defined with respect to $`\xi `$ (Appendix C).

The condition (4.35b) and the field equation (4.10) require

$$\dot{𝓣}_\xi =0.$$
(4.37)
Equation (4.35b) implies $`𝚺_\xi =𝐝_\xi \varphi _\xi `$, hence in this limit condition (4.28b) becomes

$$𝓔_\xi =𝐝_\xi \varphi _\xi ,$$
(4.38)
or with (4.23a)

$$𝓛_\xi 𝚿_\xi =0,$$
(4.39)
and using (4.28a) it follows that

$$\xi ^2\varphi _\xi =0.$$
(4.40)
Thus $`𝚿_\xi `$ is time independent and it follows from (4.23b) that the gravito-magnetic field is also time independent, $`𝓛_\xi 𝓑_\xi =0`$ . In this limit the field equations reduce to

$$𝐝_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓑_\xi =0,$$
(4.41a)
$$𝐝_\xi 𝓔_\xi =0,$$
(4.41b)
$$𝐝_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓔_\xi =2\kappa \rho _\xi \mathrm{\#}1,$$
(4.41c)
$$𝐝_\xi 𝓑_\xi 𝓛_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝓔_\xi =2\kappa \mathrm{\#}𝐉_\xi ,$$
(4.41d)
along with the conditions (4.28a), (4.28b) which can be written as

$$𝐝_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝚿_\xi \xi \varphi _\xi =0,$$
(4.42a)
$$𝓛_\xi 𝚿_\xi =0.$$
(4.42b)
respectively. Similarly it follows from (4.33a), (4.33b) and (4.37) that

$$𝐝_\xi \mathrm{\#}𝐉_\xi +\xi \rho _\xi =0,$$
(4.43a)
$$𝓛_\xi 𝐉_\xi =0,$$
(4.43b)
With $`\xi =\frac{}{t}`$ and the vector fields $`𝔼_\xi =𝓔_\xi ^{\mathrm{}}`$, $`𝔹_\xi =𝓑_\xi ^{\mathrm{}}`$, $`𝕁_\xi =𝐉_\xi ^{\mathrm{}}`$, the field equations (4.41) can be written in more familiar notation as

$$\mathrm{div}𝔹_\xi =0,$$
(4.44a)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝔼_\xi =0,$$
(4.44b)
$$\mathrm{div}𝔼_\xi =2\kappa \rho _\xi ,$$
(4.44c)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝔹_\xi \frac{𝔼_\xi }{t}=2\kappa 𝕁_\xi .$$
(4.44d)
Similarly, with $`𝔸_\xi =𝚿_\xi ^{\mathrm{}}`$, the gauge conditions (4.42a), (4.42b) become

$$\mathrm{div}𝔸_\xi \frac{\varphi _\xi }{t}=0,$$
(4.45a)
$$\frac{𝔸_\xi }{t}=0$$
(4.45b)
and the conservation equations (4.43a), (4.43b) become

$$\mathrm{div}𝕁_\xi +\frac{\rho _\xi }{t}=0,$$
(4.46a)
$$\frac{𝕁_\xi }{t}=0.$$
(4.46b)
Thus stationary electric and magnetic field configurations and their sources have direct analogues in the theory of perturbative gravitation.

The Newtonian limit is defined as the gravito-electromagnetic limit supplemented by the condition

$$𝚿_\xi =0.$$
(4.47)
From (4.12) this implies

$$𝐉_\xi =0.$$
(4.48)
The Newtonian potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\xi `$ is identified as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\xi =\frac{1}{4}\varphi _\xi .$$
(4.49)
From (4.42a) it must be time-independent

$$\xi \mathrm{\Phi }_\xi =0,$$
(4.50)
and equation (4.14) becomes

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Phi }_\xi =4\pi G\rho _\xi ,$$
(4.51)
which is just the field equation for Newtonian gravitation.

In the following section the above framework is illustrated by calculating the gravito-electromagnetic fields arising as perturbations on the asymptotic gravitational field of a rotating source.

### 4.3. The gravito-electromagnetic Field of a Rotating Source

The metric tensor at large distances from a compact rotating body, with Newtonian gravitational mass $`M`$ and angular momentum $`J`$, may be approximated (for $`r2GM`$ in units where $`c=1`$) by

$`\widehat{g}=`$ $`\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{2GM}{r}}\right)\mathrm{d}t\mathrm{d}t+\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{2GM}{r}}\right)(\mathrm{d}r\mathrm{d}r+r^2\mathrm{d}\theta \mathrm{d}\theta +r^2\mathrm{sin}^2\theta \mathrm{d}\varphi \mathrm{d}\varphi )`$ (4.52)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2GJ}{r^2}}\mathrm{sin}\theta (r\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{d}\varphi \mathrm{d}t+r\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{d}t\mathrm{d}\varphi ).`$
In the cobasis $`\{e^0=\mathrm{d}t,e^1=\mathrm{d}r,e^2=r\mathrm{d}\theta ,e^3=r\mathrm{sin}\theta \mathrm{d}\varphi \}`$ the metric tensor can be rewritten as

$`\widehat{g}=`$ $`\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{r}}\right)e^0e^0+\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{r}}\right)(e^1e^1+e^2e^2+e^3e^3)`$ (4.53)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{R_\mathrm{S}R_\mathrm{K}}{r^2}}\mathrm{sin}\theta (e^0e^3+e^3e^0)`$
in terms of the two length-scales $`R_\mathrm{S}=2GM`$ and $`R_\mathrm{K}=\frac{J}{M}`$.

Defining the dimensionless coordinates $`R`$ and $`T`$ by

$$r=\frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{ϵ}R,$$
(4.54a)
$$t=\frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{ϵ}T,$$
(4.54b)
and the dimensionless cobasis $`\underset{¯}{e}^a`$ by

$$e^a=\frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{ϵ}\underset{¯}{e}^a,$$
(4.55)
the dimensionless physical metric tensor $`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{g}}`$ defined by

$$\widehat{g}=\left(\frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{ϵ}\right)^2\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{g}},$$
(4.56)
can be rewritten as

$`\underset{¯}{\overset{^}{g}}=`$ $`\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{R}}\right)\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^0+\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{R}}\right)(\underset{¯}{e}^1\underset{¯}{e}^1+\underset{¯}{e}^2\underset{¯}{e}^2+\underset{¯}{e}^3\underset{¯}{e}^3)`$ (4.57)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{R^2}}\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}\theta (\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^3+\underset{¯}{e}^3\underset{¯}{e}^0),`$
where the constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }=ϵ\frac{R_\mathrm{K}}{R_\mathrm{S}}.$$
(4.58)
For the last term in (4.57) not to be second order in $`ϵ`$ (and hence negligible), $`\frac{R_\mathrm{S}}{R_\mathrm{K}}`$ must be of order $`ϵ`$.

With the dimensionless Minkowski metric tensor

$$\underset{¯}{g}=\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^0+\underset{¯}{e}^1\underset{¯}{e}^1+\underset{¯}{e}^2\underset{¯}{e}^2+\underset{¯}{e}^3\underset{¯}{e}^3$$
(4.59)
the perturbation $`\underset{¯}{h}`$ about $`\underset{¯}{g}`$ is then

$$\underset{¯}{h}=\frac{ϵ}{R}(\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^0+\underset{¯}{e}^1\underset{¯}{e}^1+\underset{¯}{e}^2\underset{¯}{e}^2+\underset{¯}{e}^3\underset{¯}{e}^3)+\frac{ϵ}{R^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}\theta (\underset{¯}{e}^3\underset{¯}{e}^0+\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^3),$$
(4.60)
and taking the trace-reverse yields

$$\underset{¯}{\psi }=2\frac{ϵ}{R}\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^0+\frac{ϵ}{R^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}\theta (\underset{¯}{e}^3\underset{¯}{e}^0+\underset{¯}{e}^0\underset{¯}{e}^3).$$
(4.61)
Using the dimensionless basis $`\{\underset{¯}{X}_a\}`$ dual to $`\{\underset{¯}{e}^a\}`$ given by $`\{\underset{¯}{X}_0=_T,\underset{¯}{X}_1=_R,\underset{¯}{X}_2=\frac{1}{R}_\theta ,\underset{¯}{X}_3=\frac{1}{R\mathrm{sin}\theta }_\varphi \}`$, we use $`\underset{¯}{X}_0`$ to define the dimensionless gravito-electromagnetic 1-form potential $`\underset{¯}{\psi }_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}`$ as

$$\underset{¯}{\psi }_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=2\frac{ϵ}{R}\underset{¯}{e}^0+\frac{ϵ}{R^2}\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{sin}\theta \underset{¯}{e}^3.$$
(4.62)
In terms of the dimensionless gravito-Faraday 2-form $`\underset{¯}{}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}`$ defined by

$$\underset{¯}{}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=\mathrm{d}\underset{¯}{\psi }_{\underset{¯}{X}_0},$$
(4.63)
the dimensionless gravito-electric and gravito-magnetic fields, $`\underset{¯}{𝓔}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{𝓑}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}`$ follow by writing

$$\underset{¯}{}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=\underset{¯}{X}_0^\underset{¯}{\mathrm{}}\underset{¯}{𝓔}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}+\underset{¯}{\mathrm{\#}}\underset{¯}{𝓑}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}.$$
(4.64)
Hence from (4.62)

$$\underset{¯}{𝓔}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=2\frac{ϵ}{R^2}\underset{¯}{e}^1,$$
(4.65)
and (with $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{\#}}1=\underset{¯}{e}^1\underset{¯}{e}^2\underset{¯}{e}^3`$) the dimensionless gravito-magnetic field is

$$\underset{¯}{𝓑}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=\frac{ϵ}{R^3}\mathrm{\Lambda }(\mathrm{sin}\theta \underset{¯}{e}^2+2\mathrm{cos}\theta \underset{¯}{e}^1).$$
(4.66)
In terms of $`Z=R\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, $`\underset{¯}{\mathrm{}}`$ the metric-dual map associated with $`\underset{¯}{g}`$ and

$$𝚲=\mathrm{\Lambda }_Z,$$
(4.67)
the gravito-electric and -magnetic vector fields defined by $`\underset{¯}{𝔼}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=\underset{¯}{𝓔}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}^\underset{¯}{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`\underset{¯}{𝔹}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=\underset{¯}{𝓑}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}^\underset{¯}{\mathrm{}}`$ become

$$\underset{¯}{𝔼}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=2\frac{ϵ}{R^2}\underset{¯}{X}_1,$$
(4.68a)
$$\underset{¯}{𝔹}_{\underset{¯}{X}_0}=\frac{ϵ}{R^3}(𝚲3\underset{¯}{g}(𝚲,\underset{¯}{X}_1)\underset{¯}{X}_1).$$
(4.68b)
These fields may be compared with those derived in  and . In the next two sections the motion of a test particle in a gravito-electromagnetic field is discussed. For such a particle with “spin” the motion is expected to follow from the weak field limit of equations presented in . To facilitate a comparison with treatments that ignore Mathisson-Papapetrou type coupling to spacetime curvature the discussion is restricted to the separate pre-geodesic motion of a spinless test particle and the gyroscopic precession that follows from a parallel spin vector along such a motion.

## 5. Motion of a Test Particle in a Weak Gravitational Field

The history of an electrically neutral, spinless test particle in spacetime is modeled by a future-pointing timelike curve $`C(\tau )`$ that satisfies

$$\widehat{}_C^{}C^{}\frac{1}{2}\frac{C^{}(\widehat{g}(C^{},C^{}))}{\widehat{g}(C^{},C^{})}C^{}=0,$$
(5.1)
for some general parameter $`\tau `$. To compare the following gravito-electromagnetic equations with analogous equations from electromagnetism in Minkowski spacetime it is most convenient to parameterize the curve so that

$$g(C^{},C^{})=1.$$
(5.2)
Using (3.7) and (3.11), to first order in $`ϵ`$ equation (5.1) is

$$_C^{}C^{}+\gamma (C^{},C^{},)\frac{1}{2}C^{}(h(C^{},C^{}))C^{}=0.$$
(5.3)
Rewriting $`\gamma (C^{},C^{},)`$ in terms of $`_C^{}`$ and $`𝚺_C^{}`$ (see Appendix B), (5.3) becomes

$$_C^{}C^{}+\left(\mathrm{i}_C^{}_C^{}+\frac{1}{4}𝐝_C^{}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_C^{})\right)^{\mathrm{}}=0$$
(5.4)
and, for a test particle with mass $`m`$, the perturbed gravitational force $`𝔽_\mathrm{G}`$, is then

$$𝔽_\mathrm{G}=m\left(\mathrm{i}_C^{}_C^{}+\frac{1}{4}𝐝_C^{}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_C^{})\right)^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(5.5)
The first term on the right is analogous to the Lorentz force in electromagnetism, however the second term is non-Maxwellian. Since $`𝔽_\mathrm{G}`$ depends only on $`_C^{}`$ and $`𝚺_C^{}`$ it is invariant under gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations (Section 4.1).

To examine the above equations in the gravito-electromagnetic limit assume that some vector $`_t`$ defines a gravito-electromagnetic frame, and reparameterize $`C(\tau )`$ in terms of $`t`$, so that $`𝒞(t)=C(\tau )`$. Writing $`𝒞^{}(t)`$ as

$$𝒞^{}=_t+𝐯,$$
(5.6)
where $`g(𝐯,_t)=0`$, it then follows that

$$g(𝒞^{},𝒞^{})=(1v^2),$$
(5.7)
where $`v^2=g(𝐯,𝐯)`$.

Writing $`C^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1v^2}}𝒞^{}`$, and introducing the assumption that the speed $`v`$ of the particle is non-relativistic, so that $`v1`$ (hence terms smaller than $`ϵv`$ will be neglected), (5.4) can be written in terms of $`𝒞^{}`$ as

$$_𝒞^{}𝒞^{}+v_tv𝒞^{}+\left(\mathrm{i}_𝒞^{}_𝒞^{}+\frac{1}{4}𝐝_𝒞^{}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_𝒞^{})\right)^{\mathrm{}}=0.$$
(5.8)
Expressing $`_𝒞^{}`$ and $`𝚺_𝒞^{}`$ in terms of $`\psi __t`$ (see Appendix C with $`\zeta =𝒞^{}`$ and $`\xi =_t`$) so that

$$_𝒞^{}=__t+𝐝__t(\psi __t(𝐯))\mathrm{d}t,$$
(5.9a)
$$𝚺_𝒞^{}=\{\varphi __t+2\psi __t(𝐯)\}𝐠__t\psi __t𝐯^{\mathrm{}}+𝐯^{\mathrm{}}\psi __t,$$
(5.9b)
it follows that

$$\mathrm{i}_𝒞^{}_𝒞^{}=𝓔__t\mathrm{\#}(𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝓑__t)𝐝__t(\psi __t(𝐯))+𝓔__t(𝐯)\mathrm{d}t,$$
(5.10a)
$$𝐝_𝒞^{}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_𝒞^{})=3𝓔__t+4𝐝__t(\psi __t(𝐯))+3_t\varphi __t𝐯3𝓔__t(𝐯)\mathrm{d}t,$$
(5.10b)
where (4.38) has been used.

Using (5.6) the spatial part of the equation of motion (5.8) becomes

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝐯}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{4}𝓔__t^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{\#}\left(𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝓑__t\right)^{\mathrm{}}\frac{3}{4}_t\varphi __t𝐯,$$
(5.11)
and if $`\varphi __t`$ is time-independent this reduces to

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝐯}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{4}𝓔__t^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{\#}\left(𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝓑__t\right)^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(5.12)
or in vector notation

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝐯}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{4}𝔼__t+𝐯\times 𝔹__t,$$
(5.13)
where $`𝔼__t=𝓔__t^{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`𝔹__t=𝓑__t^{\mathrm{}}`$.

In terms of these fields the perturbed gravitational force $`𝔽_\mathrm{G}`$ is then

$$𝔽_\mathrm{G}=m\left(\frac{1}{4}𝔼__t+𝐯\times 𝔹__t\right).$$
(5.14)
This is similar in structure to the Lorentz force law of electromagnetism, except for the factor of $`\frac{1}{4}`$ multiplying the gravito-electric term (and the fact that the $`𝔼__t`$ and $`𝔹__t`$ fields couple universally to inertial mass). Note that rescaling $`𝔼__t`$ to remove the factor $`\frac{1}{4}`$ would introduce a factor into the gravito-Maxwell equations above.

If one continues to the Newtonian limit then $`𝔹__t=0`$ and, using (4.38), (4.49) to express $`𝔼__t`$ in terms of the Newtonian potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }__t`$ (which will automatically be time-independent by the gauge condition $`\psi =0`$), (5.14) reduces to

$$𝔽_\mathrm{G}=m\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{\Phi }__t,$$
(5.15)
which is just Newton’s force of gravity in terms of a gravitational potential $`\mathrm{\Phi }__t`$ satisfying (4.51).

## 6. Precession of a Small Gyroscope in a Weak Gravitational Field

One may model the relativistic spin of a freely falling gyroscope by a unit spacelike vector field $`𝐒`$ along a future-pointing timelike curve $`C(\tau )`$ that satisfies (5.1), such that $`𝐒`$ solves

$$\widehat{}_C^{}𝐒=0,$$
(6.1)
with

$$\widehat{g}(𝐒,𝐒)=1,$$
(6.2a)
$$\widehat{g}(𝐒,C^{})=0,$$
(6.2b)
in terms of the physical metric tensor. A perturbative analysis can be given in terms of the vector $`𝐬`$ defined along $`C(\tau )`$ by

$$𝐬=(1+\frac{1}{2}h(𝐒,𝐒))𝐒h(𝐒,C^{})C^{},$$
(6.3)
so that (to first order in $`ϵ`$)

$$g(𝐬,𝐬)=1,$$
(6.4a)
$$g(𝐬,C^{})=0,$$
(6.4b)
in terms of the background metric $`g`$.

Equation (6.3) can be inverted and to first order in $`ϵ`$

$$𝐒=(1\frac{1}{2}h(𝐬,𝐬))𝐬+h(𝐬,C^{})C^{}.$$
(6.5)
Using the perturbed connection, (6.1) can be written in terms of $`𝐬`$ to first order in $`ϵ`$ as

$$_C^{}𝐬\frac{1}{2}C^{}(h(𝐬,𝐬))𝐬+C^{}(h(𝐬,C^{}))C^{}+\gamma (C^{},𝐬,)=0.$$
(6.6)
Rewriting $`\gamma (C^{},𝐬,)`$ in terms of $`_𝒞^{}`$ and $`𝚺_𝒞^{}`$ (see Appendix B), this becomes

$$_C^{}^\mathrm{F}𝐬+\frac{1}{2}\left(𝚷_C^{}\mathrm{i}_𝐬_C^{}𝚷_𝐬_C^{}\{𝚺_C^{}(𝐬,)\}\right)^{\mathrm{}}=0,$$
(6.7)
where for any vector field $`X`$, the Fermi-Walker connection $`^\mathrm{F}`$ is defined on $`C`$ by

$$_C^{}^\mathrm{F}X=_C^{}X+g(C^{},X)𝓐_C^{}g(𝓐_C^{},X)C^{},$$
(6.8)
with $`𝓐_C^{}=_C^{}C^{}`$. From (6.7) the effective gravitational torque $`𝕋_\mathrm{G}`$ on the gyroscope is

$$𝕋_\mathrm{G}=\frac{1}{2}\left(𝚷_C^{}\mathrm{i}_𝐬_C^{}𝚷_𝐬_C^{}\{𝚺_C^{}(𝐬,)\}\right)^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(6.9)
The vector $`𝐬`$ is said to be non-rotating along the path $`C`$ when $`𝕋_\mathrm{G}=0`$. As with the point particle, if this curve is parameterized in terms of $`t`$ so that $`𝒞^{}(t)`$ is given by (5.6) (and dropping terms smaller than $`ϵv`$), (6.7) becomes

$$_𝒞^{}^\mathrm{F}𝐬+\frac{1}{2}\left(𝚷_𝒞^{}\mathrm{i}_𝐬_𝒞^{}𝚷_𝐬_𝒞^{}\{𝚺_𝒞^{}(𝐬,)\}\right)^{\mathrm{}}=0.$$
(6.10)
The vector $`𝐬`$ can be written in terms of its spacelike component $`𝝈`$ as

$$𝐬=g(𝝈,𝐯)_t+𝝈,$$
(6.11)
which follows from (6.4a). Imposing the gravito-electromagnetic limit in the $`_t`$ frame, and writing $`_𝒞^{}`$ and $`𝚺_𝒞^{}`$ in terms of $`𝔼__t`$, $`𝔹__t`$ and $`\varphi __t`$ (see Appendix C), the spacelike component of (6.10) then becomes

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝝈}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{2}\left(𝝈\times 𝔹__t+(𝝈𝐯)𝔼__t\frac{1}{2}(𝝈𝔼__t)𝐯+(𝒞^{}\varphi __t)𝝈\right).$$
(6.12)
Since the length $`\sqrt{𝝈𝝈}`$ of the vector $`𝝈`$ is dependent on $`t`$ (to the appropriate order), introduce the constant length gyroscopic spin vector $`𝕊`$ by

$$𝕊=(1\frac{1}{2}\varphi __t)𝝈\frac{1}{2}(𝐯𝝈)𝐯.$$
(6.13)
In terms of $`𝕊`$, (6.12) can be written

$$\frac{\mathrm{d}𝕊}{\mathrm{d}t}=\frac{1}{2}𝕊\times \left(𝔹__t\frac{3}{4}𝐯\times 𝔼__t\right)$$
(6.14)
which may be compared with the similar equation found in .

To this approximation the precession rate $`\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{3}{4}𝐯\times 𝔼__t𝔹__t\right)`$ of $`𝕊`$ is independent of the gyroscopic spin and could in principle be used to detect $`𝔹__t`$.

## 7. Field Redefinitions

In order to facilitate a comparison with alternative formulations of weak gravity using the gravito-electromagnetic analogy it is worthwhile to effect certain field redfinitions. These are motivated by looking at the analogues of the transformations (3.37) with (4.5).

Let $`h_\xi =h(\xi ,)`$ and $`\xi `$ be a gravito-electromagnetic frame, then under a gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformation $`h_\xi `$ transforms as

$$h_\xi h_\xi +\mathrm{d}\lambda (\xi \lambda )\xi ^{\mathrm{}},$$
(7.1)
which is not quite of the same form as (2.3). However, defining

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_h=\frac{1}{2}h(\xi ,\xi ),$$
(7.2a)
and
$$𝐀_h=𝚷_\xi h_\xi ^{\mathrm{}},$$
(7.2b)
it follows, writing $`\xi =_t`$, that

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_h\mathrm{\Phi }_h_t\lambda ,$$
(7.3a)
$$𝐀_h𝐀_h+\mathrm{grad}\lambda $$
(7.3b)
which is indeed analogous to the (3+1)-decomposed form of an electromagnetic gauge transformation.

Similarly $`\psi _\xi `$ transforms as in (4.7) and defining

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi =\varphi _\xi =\psi (\xi ,\xi ),$$
(7.4a)
$$𝐀_\psi =𝚷_\xi \psi _\xi ^{\mathrm{}},$$
(7.4b)
the (3+1)-decomposed form of the gauge transformation (4.7) becomes

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi \mathrm{\Phi }_\psi _t\lambda ,$$
(7.5a)
$$𝐀_\psi 𝐀_\psi +\mathrm{grad}\lambda .$$
(7.5b)
Since (7.3), (7.5) are analagous to electromagnetic gauge transformations this suggests that a Maxwell type system of field equations may be constructed using $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ and $`𝐀_h`$ instead of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi `$ and $`𝐀_\psi `$.

¿From (4.1) and the above definitions of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi `$, $`𝐀_h`$ and $`𝐀_\psi `$ it follows that

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi =\mathrm{\Phi }_h\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺),$$
(7.6a)
$$𝐀_\psi =𝐀_h,$$
(7.6b)
where $`𝚺=𝚺_\xi `$.

The Lorenz gauge condition in (4.28a) written in terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi `$ and $`𝐀_\psi `$ becomes

$$\mathrm{div}𝐀_\psi +_t\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi =0,$$
(7.7a)
which has the same form as in electromagnetism for all $`𝚺`$. In terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ and $`𝐀_h`$ this becomes
$$\mathrm{div}𝐀_h+_t\mathrm{\Phi }_h=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺),$$
(7.7b)
which is unlike the electromagnetic Lorenz gauge condition when the right-hand side is non-zero.

The gravito-electric and -magnetic fields $`𝐄_\psi =𝔼_\xi `$ and $`𝐁_\psi =𝔹_\xi `$ discussed earlier are related to $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi `$ and $`𝐀_\psi `$ by

$$𝐄_\psi =\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi _t𝐀_\psi ,$$
(7.8a)
$$𝐁_\psi =\mathrm{curl}𝐀_\psi .$$
(7.8b)
Alternative gravito-electromagnetic fields $`𝐄_h`$ and $`𝐁_h`$ can be defined in terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ and $`𝐀_h`$ as

$$𝐄_h=\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{\Phi }_h_t𝐀_h,$$
(7.9a)
$$𝐁_h=\mathrm{curl}𝐀_h.$$
(7.9b)
These are related to $`𝐄_\psi `$ and $`𝐁_\psi `$ by

$$𝐄_\psi =𝐄_h+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺),$$
(7.10a)
$$𝐁_\psi =𝐁_h.$$
(7.10b)
In terms of $`𝐄_\psi `$ and $`𝚺`$ the second gauge condition (4.28b) can be written as

$$𝐄_\psi =\left(𝚺\right)^{\mathrm{}},$$
(7.11a)
or using $`𝐄_h`$ and $`𝚺`$ as
$$𝐄_h=\left(𝚺\right)^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺).$$
(7.11b)
In the $`𝐄_\psi `$ and $`𝐁_\psi `$ notation , with $`\kappa =8\pi G`$, $`\rho =\rho _\xi `$ and $`𝐉=𝕁_\xi `$ the field equations (4.34) become

$$\mathrm{div}𝐁_\psi =0,$$
(7.12a)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐄_\psi +_t𝐁_\psi =0,$$
(7.12b)
$$\mathrm{div}𝐄_\psi =16\pi G\rho ,$$
(7.12c)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐁_\psi _t𝐄_\psi =16\pi G𝐉$$
(7.12d)
for all $`𝚺`$. As stressed above these equations together with (4.17), (7.7a), (7.11a) summarise linearised Einsteinnian gravitation.

Alternatively using (7.10a) and (7.10b) the above take the form

$$\mathrm{div}𝐁_h=0,$$
(7.13a)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐄_h+_t𝐁_h=0,$$
(7.13b)
$$\mathrm{div}𝐄_h=16\pi G\rho \frac{1}{4}\mathrm{div}\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺),$$
(7.13c)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐁_h_t𝐄_h=16\pi G𝐉+\frac{1}{4}_t\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺)$$
(7.13d)
in terms of $`𝐄_h`$ and $`𝐁_h`$ and $`𝚺`$. In the gravito-electromagnetic limit, $`\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺)=12\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ so $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\psi =4\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ and $`𝐄_\psi =4𝐄_h`$. Then the Lorenz gauge condition (7.7b) becomes

$$\mathrm{div}𝐀_h+4_t\mathrm{\Phi }_h=0,$$
(7.14)
and (since $`_t𝐁_h=0`$ in the gravito-electromagnetic limit) the field equations (7.13) simplify to

$$\mathrm{div}𝐁_h=0,$$
(7.15a)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐄_h=0,$$
(7.15b)
$$\mathrm{div}𝐄_h=4\pi G\rho ,$$
(7.15c)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐁_h4_t𝐄_h=16\pi G𝐉$$
(7.15d)
which may be compared with (4.44) and the formulations given in , .

## 8. Discussion

In this article the analogy between Maxwell’s equations for the electromagnetic field, (2.1a), (2.1b) and the Einstein equations for weak gravitational fields in the transverse gauge, (4.20), (4.29) has been made in terms of tensor fields. While the former are valid in an arbitrary Lorentzian spacetime the latter have been developed in terms of perturbations about a flat spacetime background. A comparison has been made between the general equation describing the motion of electrically charged point particles (2.8) and the motion of massive point particles in a weak gravitational field (5.4). Equations have also been developed (6.14) describing the motion of a freely falling small gyroscope in terms of gravito-electromagnetic fields.

In general it is asserted that any analogy between electromagnetism and weak gravity is closest in a restricted class of reference frames related by suitable non-relativistic transformations and for stationary physical field configurations in such frames. In addition to gravito-electromagnetic fields the general equations of weak gravity involve a second degree symmetric tensor field $`𝚺_\xi `$ which has no electromagnetic analogue. The gravito-electromagnetic fields defined in 4.2 are coupled to $`𝚺_\xi `$ via (4.28b) and this field produces non-Maxwellian terms in the weak gravitational force and torque equations, (5.5) and (6.9) respectively.

In electromagnetism the Maxwell fields $`A`$, $`F`$ and $`𝒥`$ are defined independent of any frame of reference. The latter is only required to define electric and magnetic fields and their sources in terms of electric charge and current density (2.10), (2.11). In gravito-electromagnetism the analogous fields $`\psi _\xi `$, $`_\xi `$ and $`𝒥_\xi `$ are manifestly frame-dependent.

The definition of these fields has been motivated by their behaviour under a class of gauge transformations belonging to the gauge symmetry of the weak Einstein equations. Unlike electromagnetism, $`_\xi `$ is not gauge invariant under these transformations in general. However a subset of these transformations does exist for which $`_\xi `$ remains invariant. These have been called gravito-electromagnetic gauge transformations by analogy with the gauge symmetry of Maxwell’s equations. Unlike electromagnetic interactions with electrically charged particles, weak gravitational interactions are not mediated by complex representations of these symmetries. In terms of the gravito-electromagnetic fields a subset of the linearised Einstein equations take a remarkable form that is isomorphic to Maxwell’s electromagnetic field equations. No limits or further approximations are required to establish this correspondence. The explicit appearance of the $`𝚺_\xi `$ tensor is confined to the remaining equations in the linearised system. This is a primary distinction of the approach adopted here compared with previous derivations of the gravito-electromagnetic field equations. To exploit this reformulation and link physical field configurations with solutions to Maxwell’s equations further conditions must be imposed on the linearised system.

Conditions have been found that enable a useful analogy between weak gravitation and electromagnetism to be established. In the gravito-electromagnetic limit $`𝚺_\xi `$ depends only on the a gravito-electromagnetic potential (4.36). Consequently, such weak gravitational fields can be described in terms of $`\psi _\xi `$ (or alternatively $`𝓔_\xi `$ and $`𝓑_\xi `$).

However as stressed above, in order to obtain Maxwell-like equations the transverse gauge condition (4.11) is imposed on $`\psi `$. Condition (4.27) induces an equivalent condition (4.28a) on $`\psi _\xi `$. (By contrast the electromagnetic gauge condition (2.6) is one of many that may be imposed on $`A`$.) The condition on $`\psi `$ also imposes the restriction (4.28b) which in the gravito-electromagnetic limit implies that $`\psi _\xi `$ has a restricted time dependence. Physical gravito-electromagnetism consequently shares more in common with electromagneto-statics than electromagnetism. Although both the Maxwell equations (2.12) and the equivalent gravito-electromagnetic equations (4.34) hold in any inertial frame (in Minkowski spacetime), in order to remain within the gravito-electromagnetic limit only a class of gravito-electromagnetic frames of reference is permitted (Appendix C).

By perturbing the equation of a physical timelike geodesic the relativistic equation of motion for a massive point particle in the weak gravitational field can be cast into a form containing a gravito-electromagnetic Lorentz force (5.5) and an additional non-Maxwellian term. It is worth pointing out that in the context of the gravito-electromagnetic fields defined in this paper the derivation of this equation of motion does not rely on the speed of the particle and the gravito-electromagnetic Lorentz-like force takes its natural form. In the gravito-electromagnetic and non-relativistic limit the particle acceleration is then determined by a non-relativisti Lorentz-like force (5.14) containing an additional factor of $`\frac{1}{4}`$ multiplying the gravito-electric field.

When working in the gravito-electromagnetic limit the field redefinitions presented in section 7 permit a comparison with the work of Thorne in  with the notation $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h=\mathrm{\Phi }`$, $`𝐀_h=𝜸`$, $`𝐄_h=𝐠`$, and $`𝐁_h=𝐇`$, and with a current of the form $`𝐉=\rho 𝐯`$. The work of , , ,  and others may be related to that of  either by trivial field redefinitions or changes in metric signature. The analogy between electromagnetism and weak gravity developed by Wald  is similar to the one presented here. However he does not discuss how the gravito-electromagnetic 1-form-potential behaves under gauge transformations nor how the restricted time dependence arises from the transverse gauge condition.

This article offers an alternative description of weak field gravitation in the language of gravito-electromagnetic fields. We feel that it clarifies a number of issues concerning various other analogies between the equations of post-Newtonian gravity according to Einstein and Maxwell’s description of electromagnetism. In the absence of a gravito-electromagnetic limit formulations based on $`\mathrm{\Phi }_h`$ and $`𝐀_h`$ give rise to gauge conditions (7.7b), (7.11b) and field equations (7.13c), (7.13d) thereby exposing couplings between the gravito-electromagnetic potentials and fields and the tensor field $`𝚺_\xi `$. In the approach adopted here such couplings are relegated to the gauge condition (7.11a). Many analogies coalesce in the gravito-electromagnetic limit modulo a re-shuffling of numerical factors that cannot be scaled away entirely. Although the mathematical analogy between weak gravity and the full system of Maxwells equations for electromagnetism in terms of covariant tensor fields on flat spacetime can be made close, the existence of gravitational gauge conditions limits the physical222Fields derived from a potential $`\varphi __t`$ that vary linearly with $`t`$ are deemed unphysical here. analogy to stationary phenomena. Despite this limitation the interpretation of weak gravity in terms of gravito-electromagnetic fields offers a fertile avenue of exploration for phenomena associated with the detection of the stationary gravito-magnetic field. The methods presented here are also applicable in principle to certain non-flat backgrounds and to weak field descriptions of non-Einsteinian gravitation (in which other geometrical fields may compete with metric-induced gravity) at the post-Newtonian level. These issues will be discussed elsewhere.

## 9. Acknowledgement

SJC is grateful to PPARC and RWT to BAE-Systems for support for this research. The authors are also grateful for stimulating discussions with Dr R Evans of BAE-Systems (Warton).

## Appendix A Definitions and Notation

Throughout this article the geometry of spacetime is described in terms of a smooth Lorentzian metric tensor field and its associated Levi-Civita connection. The connection 1-forms $`\omega ^a_b`$ associated with any such connection $``$ are defined with respect to any local basis of vector fields $`\{X_a\}`$ where $`a=0,1,2,3`$ by

$$_{X_a}X_b=\omega ^c{}_{b}{}^{}(X_a)X_c.$$
(A.1)
If $`T`$ is a smooth tensor field on spacetime then in terms of this connection the covariant differential $``$ of $`T`$ is defined by

$$(T)(X,,\mathrm{},)=(_XT),$$
(A.2)
and if the first argument of $`T`$ is contravariant, the divergence of $`T`$ is

$$T=(_{X_a}T)(X^a,,\mathrm{},),$$
(A.3)
where indices are raised with the components of the metric tensor in the usual way. Similarly with $`\{e^a\}`$ dual to $`\{X_a\}`$ (i.e. $`e^a(X_b)=\delta _b^a`$)

$$S=(_{X_a}S)(e^a,,\mathrm{},),$$
(A.4)
for all tensors $`S`$ whose first argument is covariant. For any degree 2 covariant tensor $`T`$ the tensor $`\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}T`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}T(X,Y)=\frac{1}{2}(T(X,Y)+T(Y,X))`$.

In terms of the exterior derivative $`\mathrm{d}`$ on smooth differential $`p`$-forms on spacetime, the covariant exterior derivative is defined on mixed basis indexed $`p`$-forms by

$`\mathrm{D}S^{a\mathrm{}b}{}_{c\mathrm{}d}{}^{}=`$ $`\mathrm{d}S^{a\mathrm{}b}{}_{c\mathrm{}d}{}^{}+\omega ^a{}_{s}{}^{}S^{s\mathrm{}b}{}_{c\mathrm{}d}{}^{}+\mathrm{}+\omega ^b{}_{s}{}^{}S^{a\mathrm{}s}_{c\mathrm{}d}`$ (A.5)
$`\omega ^s{}_{c}{}^{}S^{a\mathrm{}b}{}_{s\mathrm{}d}{}^{}\mathrm{}\omega ^s{}_{d}{}^{}S^{a\mathrm{}b}{}_{c\mathrm{}s}{}^{}.`$
The curvature operator $`𝐑`$ for the connection $``$ is

$$𝐑_{XY}=[_X,_Y]_{[X,Y]}$$
(A.6)
for all vector fields $`X,Y`$, and the (Riemann) curvature tensor $`R`$ defined by

$$R(X,Y,Z,\alpha )=\alpha (𝐑_{XY}Z).$$
(A.7)
Then in dual local bases $`\{X_a\}`$ and $`\{e^a\}`$ the curvature 2-forms $`R^a_b`$ are defined by

$$R=2R^a{}_{b}{}^{}e^bX_a.$$
(A.8)
Successive contractions (where $`\mathrm{i}_X`$ is the interior operator with respect to the vector $`X`$) give the Ricci 1-forms

$$P_b=\mathrm{i}_{X_a}R^a{}_{b}{}^{},$$
(A.9)
and the curvature scalar $``$

$$=\mathrm{i}_{X^a}P_a.$$
(A.10)
With $`g`$ a metric tensor on vectors and $`G`$ the induced metric tensor on 1-forms, the metric-dual of a vector $`X`$ is given by $`X^{\mathrm{}}=g(X,)`$ and that of and a 1-form $`\alpha `$ by $`\alpha ^{\mathrm{}}=G(\alpha ,)`$.

If $`U`$ is a unit-normalized vector field ($`g(U,U)=\lambda `$ where $`\lambda =\pm 1`$), then the projection operator on contravariant tensor fields is defined as

$$𝚷_U=\mathrm{𝟏}\lambda UU^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(A.11a)
By abuse of notation the same symbol is used to denote the projector on covariant tensors
$$𝚷_U=\mathrm{𝟏}\lambda U^{\mathrm{}}U,$$
(A.11b)
and differential $`p`$-forms
$$𝚷_U=\mathrm{𝟏}\lambda U^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{i}_U,$$
(A.11c)
since the domain should be clear from the context. The map $`𝚷_U`$ is a tensor homomorphism
$$𝚷_U(\alpha \mathrm{}\beta )=𝚷_U\alpha \mathrm{}𝚷_U\beta ,$$
(A.11d)
for all $`\alpha ,\beta ,\mathrm{}`$ and has the following properties:

$$𝚷_U𝚷_U=𝚷_U,$$
(A.12a)
$$𝚷_U\mathrm{i}_U=\mathrm{i}_U,$$
(A.12b)
$$\mathrm{i}_U𝚷_U=0.$$
(A.12c)
The projection tensor $`𝚷_V`$ is used to define the spatial metric on spacetime associated with the timelike vector field $`V`$:

$$𝐠_V=\mathrm{\Pi }_Vg.$$
(A.13)
One can write $`V^{\mathrm{}}`$ in terms of $`𝐠_V`$ and $`𝚷_V`$ as follows:

$$V^{\mathrm{}}=𝝈_V+𝛀_V+\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{\Theta }_V𝐠_VV^{\mathrm{}}𝓐_V^{\mathrm{}}$$
(A.14)
where

$$𝝈_V=\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}\mathrm{\Pi }_VV^{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{3}\mathrm{\Theta }_V𝐠_V,$$
(A.15a)
is the shear of $`V`$,
$$\mathrm{\Theta }_V=V,$$
(A.15b)
is the expansion of $`V`$,
$$𝛀_V=\mathrm{\Pi }_V\mathrm{d}V^{\mathrm{}},$$
(A.15c)
is the vorticity of $`V`$ and
$$𝓐_V=_VV$$
(A.15d)
is the acceleration of $`V`$.
A vector field $`\xi `$ is said to be parallel (with respect to $``$) if

$$\xi =0,$$
(A.16)
in which case $`\xi ^{\mathrm{}}=0`$, so $`\xi `$ has vanishing shear, vorticity, expansion and acceleration. Furthermore

$$\mathrm{𝐒𝐲𝐦}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}=0,$$
(A.17)
or equivalently

$$_\xi g=0$$
(A.18)
in terms of the Lie derivative. Thus, if $`\xi `$ is parallel then it is also a Killing vector and

$$_\xi =_\xi .$$
(A.19)
For any tensor field $`T`$ taking at least one covariant argument let $`T_\xi `$ be defined by contraction such that

$$T_\xi (,\mathrm{},)=T(,\mathrm{},,\xi ,,\mathrm{},).$$
(A.20)
If $`\xi `$ is parallel it follows that

$$(_XT_\xi )(,\mathrm{},)=(_XT)(,\mathrm{},,\xi ,,\mathrm{},)$$
(A.21)
for all vector fields $`X`$. When acting on $`p`$-forms this is simply the rule:

$$\mathrm{i}_\xi _X=_X\mathrm{i}_\xi .$$
(A.22)
The metric tensor $`g`$ gives rise to a canonical volume 4-form $`1`$ on spacetime and an associated Hodge map $``$ on $`p`$-forms. In terms of a local $`g`$orthonormal local basis of 1-forms $`\{e^a\}`$ one may write $`1=e^0e^1e^2e^3`$. A volume 3-form $`\mathrm{\#}1`$ associated with the unit timelike vector field $`V`$ is given in terms of $`1`$ by

$$1=V^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\#}1$$
(A.23)
with $`\mathrm{i}_V\mathrm{\#}1=0`$. Hence

$$\mathrm{\#}1=V^{\mathrm{}}$$
(A.24)
and $`\mathrm{\#}1`$ induces a spatial Hodge map, $`\mathrm{\#}`$, on the image of forms under $`𝚷_V`$. With these operations defined one can decompose the Hodge map of any spacetime form and its exterior derivative into spatial forms. Thus the Hodge dual of any $`p`$-form $`\omega `$ on spacetime may always be written

$$\omega =\left\{\mathrm{\#}\mathrm{i}_V\omega \right\}+V^{\mathrm{}}\left\{\mathrm{\#}(𝚷_V\omega )^\eta \right\}$$
(A.25)
where $`\alpha ^\eta =(1)^p\alpha `$ for any $`p`$-form $`\alpha `$ and each of the terms in brackets is annihilated by $`V`$ (i.e. $`\mathrm{i}_V\left\{\right\}=0`$). A projected Lie derivative with respect to $`V`$ is defined as

$$𝓛_V=𝚷_V_V𝚷_V$$
(A.26)
and for any p-form $`\omega `$ one can write

$$_V\omega =\left\{𝓛_V\omega 𝓐_V^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{i}_V\omega \right\}V^{\mathrm{}}\left\{𝓛_V\mathrm{i}_V\omega \right\}$$
(A.27)
where each of the terms in brackets is annihilated by $`V`$.

In terms of the projected exterior derivative

$$𝐝_V=𝚷_V\mathrm{d}𝚷_V,$$
(A.28)
and with $`𝐃_V`$ defined by

$$𝐃_V=𝐝_V+𝓐_V^{\mathrm{}}$$
(A.29)
one may write

$$\mathrm{d}\omega =\left\{𝐝_V\omega 𝛀_V\mathrm{i}_V\omega \right\}V^{\mathrm{}}\left\{(𝓛_V\omega 𝐃_V\mathrm{i}_V\omega )\right\}$$
(A.30)
where each of the terms in brackets is annihilated by $`V`$. These formulae permit a local “3+1” decomposition of exterior differential equations with respect to the general observer field $`V`$ in a spacetime with an arbitrary Lorentzian metric and permit one to identify spatial fields parametrised by a local time associated with $`V`$.

With the Faraday 2-form $`F`$ decomposed as

$$F=V^{\mathrm{}}𝐞+\mathrm{\#}𝐛$$
(A.31)
where $`\mathrm{i}_V𝐞=0`$, and $`\mathrm{i}_V𝐛=0`$, it follows that $`\mathrm{i}_VF=𝐞`$ and $`𝚷_VF=\mathrm{\#}𝐛`$. Similarly using (A.25)

$$F=V^{\mathrm{}}𝐛\mathrm{\#}𝐞,$$
(A.32)
so $`\mathrm{i}_VF=𝐛`$ and $`𝚷_VF=\mathrm{\#}𝐞`$. Writing

$$𝒥=\rho V^{\mathrm{}}+𝐣$$
(A.33)
where $`\mathrm{i}_V𝐣=0`$, and using (A.25) it follows that

$$𝒥=\rho \mathrm{\#}1V^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\#}𝐣.$$
(A.34)
The co-derivative $`\delta `$ is defined on spacetime $`p`$-forms in terms of the Hodge map $``$ and the exterior derivative $`\mathrm{d}`$ by

$$\delta =^1\mathrm{d}\eta $$
(A.35)
where $`\eta \omega =\omega ^\eta `$ for any $`p`$-form $`\omega `$. The field equations (2.1a) and (2.1b) can be written as

$$\mathrm{d}F=0,$$
(A.36a)
$$\mathrm{d}F=𝒥.$$
(A.36b)
Using (A.30) the Maxwell equations given in (2.12) follow immediately.

With the definitions:

$$\mathrm{div}𝐗=\left(\mathrm{\#}𝐝_V\mathrm{\#}𝐗^{\mathrm{}}\right)^{\mathrm{}},$$
(A.37a)
$$\mathrm{curl}𝐗=\left(\mathrm{\#}𝐝_V𝐗^{\mathrm{}}\right)^{\mathrm{}},$$
(A.37b)
$$\mathrm{grad}\mathrm{\Phi }=\left(𝐝_V\mathrm{\Phi }\right)^{\mathrm{}},$$
(A.37c)
$$𝐗\times 𝐘=\left(𝐗^{\mathrm{}}𝐘^{\mathrm{}}\right)^{\mathrm{}},$$
(A.37d)
$$𝐗𝐘=𝐠_V(𝐗,𝐘)=\mathrm{\#}(𝐗^{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{\#}𝐘^{\mathrm{}})$$
(A.37e)
where $`𝐗`$ and $`𝐘`$ are spacelike (with respect to V) vectors, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a $`0`$-form on spacetime, exterior equations can be transcribed to Euclidean vector notation.

The Laplacian operator $`\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}`$ associated with $`g`$ and $``$ is defined by

$$\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}=,$$
(A.38)
and the associated Laplace-Beltrami operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ on $`p`$-forms is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=(\delta \mathrm{d}+\mathrm{d}\delta ).$$
(A.39)
It can be shown that, when acting on any $`p`$-form $`\alpha `$, $`\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}`$ is related to the Laplace-Beltrami operator $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ by

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\alpha +e^a\mathrm{i}_{X^b}𝐑_{X_aX_b}\alpha .$$
(A.40)
Thus if $`\beta `$ is a 1-form

$$\mathrm{\Delta }\beta =\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}\beta \mathrm{𝐑𝐢𝐜}(\beta ^{\mathrm{}},)$$
(A.41)
and for any 0-form $`f`$

$$\mathrm{\Delta }f=\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}f.$$
(A.42)
In a spacetime with a flat metric

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{𝐋𝐚𝐩}$$
(A.43)
for all $`p`$-forms.

## Appendix B The Perturbed Connection and Gravito-Electromagnetic Fields

With the $`(3,0)`$ tensor field $`\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}`$ defined by

$$\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(X,Y,Z)=\gamma (X,Y,Z^{\mathrm{}}),$$
(B.1)
using (3.17) it follows that

$$\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(\xi ,,)=\frac{1}{2}_\xi h+\mathrm{𝐀𝐥𝐭}(h)(,\xi ,),$$
(B.2)
where $`\xi `$ defines a gravito-electromagnetic frame (unit timelike and parallel, to zero order in $`ϵ`$), and for any type (2,0) tensor $`T`$, $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐥𝐭}T`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{𝐀𝐥𝐭}T(X,Y)=\frac{1}{2}(T(X,Y)T(Y,X))`$.

To relate expression (B.2) to gravito-electromagnetic fields one may proceed as follows. By trace-reversing $`\psi `$ as given in (4.1), $`h`$ can be written as

$$h=\psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}\psi _\xi 𝚺_\xi +\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )g,$$
(B.3)
and acting with $`_\xi `$ gives

$$_\xi h=_\xi \psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}_\xi \psi _\xi _\xi 𝚺_\xi +\frac{1}{2}\xi \mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )g.$$
(B.4)
Since $`\xi `$ is first order in $`ϵ`$ it follows that

$$(h)(,\xi ,)=(h(\xi ,)),$$
(B.5)
and contracting (B.3) with $`\xi `$ gives

$$h(\xi ,)=\psi _\xi (\varphi _\xi \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi ))\xi ^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(B.6)
Hence

$$(h)(,\xi ,)=\psi _\xi \mathrm{d}(\varphi _\xi \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi ))\xi ^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(B.7)
Antisymmetrizing this yields

$$\mathrm{𝐀𝐥𝐭}(h)(,\xi ,)=_\xi +\xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝐝_\xi (\varphi _\xi \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )),$$
(B.8)
where $`_\xi =\mathrm{d}\psi _\xi `$.

Equation (B.2) can now be written as

$`\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(\xi ,,)=`$ $`(_\xi \psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\xi ^{\mathrm{}}_\xi \psi _\xi +_\xi 𝚺_\xi )`$ (B.9)
$`+\frac{1}{4}\xi \mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )g+_\xi +\xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝐝_\xi (\varphi _\xi \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )),`$
and contracting on $`\xi `$ gives

$$\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(\xi ,\xi ,)=\xi (\varphi _\xi \frac{1}{4}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi ))\xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\mathrm{i}_\xi _\xi +\frac{1}{4}𝐝_\xi \mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi ).$$
(B.10)
If $`𝐗`$ is orthogonal to $`\xi `$, $`g(\xi ,𝐗)=0`$, and $`𝐗`$ is first order or higher in $`ϵ`$, then $`\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(\xi ,𝐗,)`$ can be rewritten as

$`\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(\xi ,𝐗,)=`$ $`\xi (\psi _\xi (𝐗))\xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\xi (\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )+𝚺_\xi (𝐗,𝐗))𝐗^{\mathrm{}}`$ (B.11)
$`+\mathrm{i}_𝐗(\mathrm{i}_\xi _\xi +\frac{1}{4}𝐝_\xi \mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi ))\xi +\frac{1}{2}𝚷_\xi \mathrm{i}_𝐗_\xi +𝚷_𝐗_\xi 𝚺_\xi (𝐗,).`$
Let $`\xi `$ be a vector field such that $`\xi =0`$ and $`g(\xi ,\xi )=1`$ (to at least first order in $`ϵ`$). Using (3.11) and adding hats to quantities defined with respect to the physical metric $`\widehat{g}`$ it follows that

$$\widehat{}\xi =\gamma (\xi ,,),$$
(B.12)
or with $`X^\widehat{\mathrm{}}=\widehat{G}(X,)`$, that:

$$\widehat{}\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}}=\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(\xi ,,),$$
(B.13)
where $`\gamma ^{\mathrm{}}(X,Y,Z)=\gamma (X,Y,Z^{\mathrm{}})`$. Antisymmetrizing and using (B.9) yields

$$\mathrm{d}\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}}=_\xi +\xi ^{\mathrm{}}𝐝_\xi (\varphi _\xi \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )).$$
(B.14)
The left hand side can be contracted on $`\xi `$ and rewritten as

$$\mathrm{i}_\xi \mathrm{d}\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}}=\widehat{𝓐}_\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}}\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{d}(h(\xi ,\xi )),$$
(B.15)
where $`\widehat{𝓐}_\xi =\widehat{}_\xi \xi `$. Contracting (B.6) with $`\xi `$ and using (B.14) it follows that

$$\widehat{𝓐}_\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}}=𝓔_\xi +\frac{1}{4}𝐝_\xi \mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi ))+\frac{1}{4}\xi \mathrm{Tr}(𝚺_\xi )\xi ^{\mathrm{}}.$$
(B.16)
Defining

$$\widehat{𝛀}_\xi =\widehat{𝚷}_\xi \mathrm{d}\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}},$$
(B.17)
and projecting (B.14) gives

$$\widehat{𝛀}_\xi =\mathrm{\#}𝓑_\xi .$$
(B.18)
In the gravito-electromagnetic limit and with $`\xi \varphi _\xi =0`$ (B.16) simplifies to

$$\widehat{𝓐}_\xi ^\widehat{\mathrm{}}=\frac{1}{4}𝓔_\xi .$$
(B.19)
Thus the gravito-electromagnetic fields can be interpreted in terms of the vorticity and acceleration of the vector field $`\xi `$ with respect to $`\widehat{g}`$.

## Appendix C Transformation Laws For Gravito-Electromagnetic Fields Under a Change of Frame

Let $`\zeta `$ and $`\xi `$ define two gravito-electromagnetic frames (as defined in section 4.1) such that

$$\zeta =\xi +𝐯,$$
(C.1)
where $`g(\xi ,𝐯)=0`$ and $`v^2=g(𝐯,𝐯)1`$.

Since $`\psi `$ is independent of any frame of reference it may be expanded as

$$\psi =\varphi _\xi g\psi _\xi \xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}\psi _\xi 𝚺_\xi ,$$
(C.2a)
in terms of $`\zeta `$ or as
$$\psi =\varphi _\zeta g\psi _\zeta \zeta ^{\mathrm{}}\zeta ^{\mathrm{}}\psi _\zeta 𝚺_\zeta $$
(C.2b)
in terms of $`\xi `$. Equating these two expressions yields

$$\psi _\zeta =\psi _\xi \psi _\xi (𝐯)\xi ^{\mathrm{}}+\left\{\varphi _\xi 𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝚺_\xi (𝐯,)\right\},$$
(C.3a)
$`𝚺_\zeta =`$ $`𝚺_\xi +2\psi _\xi (𝐯)𝐠_\xi \psi _\xi 𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝐯^{\mathrm{}}\psi _\xi `$ (C.3b)
$`\left\{\varphi _\xi 𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝚺_\xi (𝐯,)\right\}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}\xi ^{\mathrm{}}\left\{\varphi _\xi 𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝚺_\xi (𝐯,)\right\},`$
Thus if $`𝐯`$ is of order $`ϵ`$ the fields $`\psi _\zeta `$ and $`𝚺_\zeta `$ are invariant under a change of gravito-electromagnetic frame to first order in $`ϵ`$.

If the gravito-electromagnetic limit is satisfied in the $`\xi `$ frame, the terms in braces vanish and the above simplify to

$$\psi _\zeta =\psi _\xi \psi _\xi (𝐯)\xi ^{\mathrm{}},$$
(C.4a)
$$𝚺_\zeta =\{\varphi _\xi +2\psi _\xi (𝐯)\}𝐠_\xi \psi _\xi 𝐯^{\mathrm{}}𝐯^{\mathrm{}}\psi _\xi .$$
(C.4b)
If $`𝐯`$ is of order $`ϵ`$ then the gravito-electromagnetic limit is preserved and the above fields remain invariant.

## Appendix D An Alternative Analogy Between Einstein’s Equations and Electromagnetism Based on Properties of the Conformal Tensor

As mentioned in the introduction there exist alternative analogies between Einstein’s theory of gravitation and Maxwell’s electromagnetic equations that do not necessarily require a perturbative approach. One such analogy is summarised here in terms of the conformal tensor on spacetime since it highlights the differences accorded to gravito-electromagnetism by different authors , , , , , .

The fourth order (Weyl) conformal tensor may be written as

$$C=2C_{ab}(e^ae^b)$$
(D.1)
where (in any local cobasis $`\{e^a\}`$), the conformal 2-forms $`C_{ab}`$ are defined in terms of the curvature 2-forms $`R_{ab}`$, the Ricci 1-forms $`P_a`$,  and the curvature scalar $``$:

$$C_{ab}=R_{ab}\frac{1}{2}(P_ae_bP_be_a)+\frac{1}{6}e_ae_b.$$
(D.2)
The covariant exterior derivative of the conformal 2-forms is

$$\mathrm{D}C_{ab}=\frac{1}{2}(Y_ae_bY_be_a),$$
(D.3)
where the 2-forms $`Y_a`$ are defined by

$$Y_a=\mathrm{D}P_a\frac{1}{6}\mathrm{d}e_a.$$
(D.4)
If the geometry of spacetime is determined by Einstein’s equations then these forms may be related to the stress energy-momentum tensor $`𝒯`$ by introducing the 3-forms $`\tau _a`$ such that

$$𝒯=(^1\tau _a)e^a.$$
(D.5)
Since the connection is torsion-free:

$$Y_a=\mathrm{D}(P_a\frac{1}{6}e_a).$$
(D.6)
It follows immediately from Einstein’s equations written in terms of the Ricci forms $`P_a`$  that

$$Y_a=\frac{\kappa }{2}\mathrm{D}(^1\tau _a\frac{1}{3}(\mathrm{i}_{X^c}^1\tau _c)e_a),$$
(D.7)
where $`\kappa =8\pi G`$.

In terms of the covariant Lie derivative $`\mathrm{L}_X`$:

$$\mathrm{L}_X=\mathrm{Di}_X+\mathrm{i}_X\mathrm{D},$$
(D.8)
one may show that

$$\mathrm{L}_{X^a}C_{ab}=\frac{1}{2}Y_b$$
(D.9)
and

$$\mathrm{L}_{X^a}Y_a=0.$$
(D.10)
These relations may be compared with the equations for the Faraday 2-form $`F`$:

$$\delta F=𝒥,$$
(D.11)
from which there follows the conservation of electric current,

$$\delta 𝒥=0.$$
(D.12)
In any local cobase $`F`$ can be written in terms of its components as

$$F=F_{ab}e^ae^b,$$
(D.13)
(compare with (D.1)) and $`𝒥`$ as

$$𝒥=𝒥_ae^a.$$
(D.14)
In terms of the vector-valued $`0`$-forms $`F_{ab}`$ and $`𝒥_a`$ (D.11) and (D.12) can be rewritten as

$$\mathrm{L}_{X^a}F_{ab}=\frac{1}{2}𝒥_b,$$
(D.15)
$$\mathrm{L}_{X^a}𝒥_a=0$$
(D.16)
which are analogous to (D.9) and (D.10).

The use of local coframes is not mandatory to see this correspondence. A purely tensorial formulation follows by writing

$$C=Y,$$
(D.17)
where

$$Y=e^aY_a.$$
(D.18)
This is the analogue of the Maxwell equation

$$F=\frac{1}{2}𝒥.$$
(D.19)
Similarly one may write

$$Y=0,$$
(D.20)
to compare it with the conservation of electric current written in the form

$$𝒥=0.$$
(D.21)


text:
# Quantum renormalization of high energy excitations in the 2D Heisenberg antiferromagnet

## References


text:
# 𝐾-Band Calibration of the Red Clump Luminosity

## 1 Introduction

The horizontal branch “red clump” is a landmark feature in color-magnitude diagrams of intermediate-age ($``$1-10 Gyr) or very old ($`\stackrel{>}{}`$10 Gyr) but metal-rich stellar populations. It has been suggested that red clump giants are standard candles, like their very old and metal-poor cousins, the RR Lyrae variable stars (Cannon 1970). Red clump giants have recently gained popularity as standard candles because the Hipparcos color-magnitude diagram of the solar neighborhood displays a very prominent red clump (Perryman et al. 1997). Paczyński and Stanek (1998) measured the distance to the Galactic center using the Hipparcos $`I`$-band calibration of the red clump luminosity. Distance estimates to the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and M31 soon followed (Udalski et al. 1998; Stanek et al. 1998; Stanek & Garnavich 1998). At first, the Hipparcos red clump yielded a “short” distance to the LMC, consistent with earlier measurements based on the red clump (Butcher 1977; Seidel et al. 1987). However, Romaniello et al. (1999) have since obtained a long LMC distance also using the red clump. Extant distance measurements made with the LMC red clump do not agree. Recent theoretical and observational studies of the effects of mean population age and metallicity on the red clump luminosity have been made by Cole (1998), Girardi et al. (1998), Udalski (1998, 1998b, 1999), Alves and Sarajedini (1999), and others. Earlier studies include Lattanzio (1986), Seidel et al. (1987b), and Olszewski et al. (1987). Variations in mean population age and metallicity are theoretically predicted to change the red clump luminosity at the $``$20% level. Finally, issues of extinction that potentially affect recent distance measurements made with the red clump have been discussed by Romaniello et al. (1999), Zaritsky (1999), and Popowski (2000).

In the spirit of McGonegal et al. (1982), who first discussed the advantages of the near-infrared wavelength regime for distance scale work with Cepheid variable stars, we assemble $`K`$-band photometry data for 238 Hipparcos red clump giants from the literature, derive a $`K`$-band luminosity calibration, and apply it to published $`K`$-band photometry of Baade’s Window in order to measure the distance to the Galactic center. The advantage of our $`K`$-band calibration compared to the Paczyński and Stanek (1998) $`I`$-band calibration is a decreased sensitivity to reddening (e.g. Cardelli et al. 1989), and perhaps also a reduced systematic dependence on metallicity. In order to investigate the latter, and also to refer our calibration to a known metallicity zero-point, we restrict our sample of Hipparcos red clump calibrators to those with abundances derived from high-resolution spectroscopic data (McWilliams 1990). Udalski (1999) made an important analysis of the $`M_I`$–\[Fe/H\] correlation with these same data from McWilliams (1990).

## 2 The Red Clump Data

A. Udalski kindly provided a machine-readable list of Hipparcos catalog identifiers, “Henry Draper Catalog” names (Cannon & Pickering 1918), and McWilliams (1990) metallicity estimates for 284 red clump giants. We downloaded the Hipparcos main catalog from the NASA Astronomical Data Center archive (http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and assembled RA & Dec. (H3-4), parallax (H11), parallax error (H16), Johnson $`V`$ mag (H5), Johnson $`(BV)`$ color (H37), and Cousins $`(VI)`$ color (H40) for each red clump giant in the Udalski list. (Column entries in the Hipparcos main catalog are given in parentheses.)

The coordinates of the 284 red clump calibrators were first cross-correlated with released 2MASS data using the NASA Infrared Science Archive (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/). Unfortunately, all 25 stars found carried saturation flags. Therefore, we proceeded to download machine-readable versions of the “Catalog of Infrared Observations, Edition 5” (the “CIO”; Gezari et al. 1999) and the “Infrared Source Cross Index” (Schmitz et al. 1987) from the NASA Astronomical Data Center archive. The CIO lists every astronomical photometric measurement in the wavelength range of 1 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ to 1 mm published since 1965. Using the Henry Draper Catalog names of our red clump calibrators, we retrieved the various different names for these stars as they may appear in the CIO, and extracted all corresponding entries. Listings of the 2.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ flux with flags ”M” or ”C” (magnitude, or magnitude derived from color) were then assembled. Many of our 284 red clump calibrators were included in the “Infrared Catalog” (designated with “IRC” numbers), also known as the “Caltech Two Micron Sky Survey”, or the “TMSS” (Neugebauer & Leighton 1968, 1969). We note that all other 2.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ ($`K`$-band) measurements in the intervening 30 years showed remarkably good agreement with the TMSS data, typically to within 0.01 to 0.02 mag. As many as a dozen 2.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ measurements have been published for some of our red clump calibrators, although 1-3 is typical. Table 1 summarizes (1) Henry Draper Catalog name, (2) other names for this star in the CIO, (3) the average 2.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}`$ mag for listings in the CIO under the names given in column 2, (4) the Hipparcos identifier, (5) the parallax ($`\pi `$) in units of mas, (6) the parallax error ($`\sigma _\pi `$) in units of mas, (7) the $`V`$ mag, (8) the ($`BV`$) color, (9) the ($`VI`$) color, and (10) the McWilliams (1990) estimate of \[Fe/H\]. We provide $`K`$-band magnitudes for 238 of the 284 red clump calibrators.

As a check of the $`K`$ photometry, we identified 31 of our red clump calibrators in the Koorneef (1983) standard star list, which is primarily a compilation of Johnson and Glass standards. The Johnson-Glass system has been thoroughly discussed by Bessell and Brett (1988). For the 31 red clump calibrators that are also standard stars, the $`K`$ mags in Table 1 show no systematic offset from the standard system, and a standard deviation of 0.014 mag. Therefore, with regard to calculating the absolute magnitudes of the red clump calibrators, the errors associated with the published $`K`$-band photometry are probably negligible compared to the uncertainties of the Hipparcos parallaxes.

## 3 The $`K`$-Band Calibration

The red clump calibrators were preselected to have parallax errors of less than 10% (Paczyński & Stanek 1998). The mean parallax error of our sample is 5%. We calculate absolute magnitudes and errors using the formulae,

$$M_K=K10.0+2.1715\mathrm{ln}(\pi )$$
(1)
$$\sigma _{M_K}=2.1715(\sigma _\pi /\pi )$$
(2)
We assume no foreground reddening for our sample of red clump calibrators (Mendez & van Altena 1998).

We present the $`M_I`$, $`(VI)_0`$ color-magnitude diagram in Figure 1, which illustrates the color-magnitude cuts orginally employed by Paczyński and Stanek (1998) to isolate the Hipparcos red clump. Clearly, not all of these stars are red clump giants. The $`M_K`$, $`(VK)_0`$ color-magnitude diagram is shown in Figure 2. The same stars are plotted in Figures 1 & 2. The primary concentration of red clump giants lies near $`M_K1.6`$ with colors $`(VK)_02.2`$ to 2.5 mag. The faint extension of the red clump at $`M_K1.2`$ and $`(VK)_02.1`$ mag has been discussed by Girardi et al. (1998). The plume of brighter red clump stars seen at $`(VK)_02.1`$ mag has been discussed by Beaulieu and Sackett (1998). Some stars with $`(VK)_0\stackrel{>}{}2.5`$ mag are probably giant branch stars, not red clump giants. Finally, the stars at $`M_K2.85`$ and $`(VK)_02.5`$ to 3.0 mag are probably associated with the asymptotic giant branch bump, and are not red clump giants (e.g. Gallart 1998, Alves & Sarajedini 1999).

In Figure 3, we plot the $`M_K`$ differential luminosity function of the red clump calibrators. It has become customary to fit a linear (or higher order) background plus a Gaussian model to the red clump luminosity function in order to derive the peak magnitude. Inspection of Figure 3 suggests that a linear background is unnecessary, and we instead allow for a constant background level in our fits. Considering the likely contamination of the red clump calibrator sample (i.e,. by the asymptotic giant branch bump at $`M_K2.85`$ mag), we fit the data in the restricted range of $`2.5<M_K<0.8`$ mag. This portion of the luminosity function is indicated with a solid line in Figure 3. The excluded red clump data are shown with a dotted line. Our fit is a 3-parameter Gaussian (the center, width, and height of the distribution) plus a constant background in units of stars per histogram bin. The best fit yields $`M_K=1.61\pm 0.03`$ mag. The width of the Gaussian component in the model function is $`\sigma _K=0.22\pm 0.03`$ mag. We report the 1$`\sigma `$ errors. The best fit model function is shown in Figure 3 with a dashed line. Luminosity functions constructed with different magnitude cuts and histogram bin sizes yield consistent results for the center of the Gaussian; however, the best-fit width of the Gaussian varies systematically at a level comparable to the reported 1$`\sigma `$ error. We note that the median value of the red clump sample is $`M_K=1.62`$ mag. If we apply a color cut of $`2.2<(VK)<2.5`$, the median value is $`M_K=1.60`$ mag. These median values reassure us that the “wings” of the peak in the $`M_K`$ luminosity function (arising partly from contamination of the red clump sample by stars in other stellar evolutionary phases) have not significantly affected our derivation of the $`K`$-band red clump luminosity calibration.

In Figure 4, we plot $`M_K`$ versus \[Fe/H\] for the Hipparcos red clump giants. The mean metallicity of the red clump calibrators is \[Fe/H\] = $`0.18`$ dex ($`\sigma `$ = 0.17 dex). Using the errors from Eqn. 2, and adopting 0.1 dex for the metallicity errors (McWilliams 1990), the ordinary least squares regression with \[Fe/H\] as the independent variable yields,

$$M_K=(0.57\pm 0.36)[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}](1.64\pm 0.07)$$
(3)
A bootstrap analysis confirms the error estimate on the slope. The inverse regression, the bisector regression, the orthogonal regression, and the reduced major-axis regression (Isobe et al. 1990) yield wildly discrepant results. For comparison, if we apply a color cut of $`2.2<(VK)<2.5`$, the ordinary least squares regression yields a slope of $`0.36\pm 0.33`$. In conclusion, we do not find a significant correlation between $`M_K`$ and \[Fe/H\]. These data only weakly constrain the slope of a linear model dependence between $`M_K`$ and \[Fe/H\] (i.e. a range of slopes from $`0.36`$ to 0.57 is found). Indeed, a casual inspection of Figure 4 suggests no dependence on metallicity. We tentatively recommend no metallicity correction to our $`K`$-band red clump luminosity calibration and application only to red clump giants with metallicities in the restricted range of $`0.5\stackrel{<}{}`$ \[Fe/H\] $`\stackrel{<}{}0.0`$. Finally, we note that these Hipparcos red clump data do not span a very wide range of metallicity, which probably hinders our attempt to detect a correlation between $`M_K`$ and \[Fe/H\].

## 4 Distance to the Galactic Center

Figure 5 shows a $`K_0`$, $`(VK)_0`$ color-magnitude diagram of Baade’s Window. The data are taken from Tiede et al. (1995; their field 4b), who give the dereddened magnitudes and colors111The near-infrared magnitudes and colors in Table 4 of Tiede et al. (1995) are dereddened. However, the $`V_0`$ and $`(VI)_0`$ data are actually apparent magnitudes, incorrectly labeled as dereddened magnitudes.. These authors adopt the following extinction coefficients for this field: $`A_K`$ = 0.14, $`A_V`$ = 1.46, and $`E(VI)`$ = 0.65 mag. The photometric data presented in Figure 5 are dereddened with these coefficients. Tiede et al. (1995) find \[Fe/H\] = $`0.17\pm 0.09`$ dex for the mean metallicity of giants in this field, which is based on their own analyses as well as a review of the literature. Thus, the mean metallicities of the Baade’s Window and Hipparcos red clumps examined here are nearly identical.

The dereddened $`K`$-band brightness of the Baade’s Window red clump is calculated as follows. In Figure 6, we present a differential luminosity function of the Baade’s Window giant branch, where we have excluded stars with $`(VK)_0<3.0`$, $`K_0<10.5`$, and $`K_0>15.0`$ mag. The adopted bin size is 0.15 mag, which was determined after several trials of model fitting, as described below. Inspection of Figure 6 suggests that a Gaussian plus a linear background is an adequate model for the data. The best fit to the data yields $`<K_0>_{RC}=12.98\pm 0.11`$ mag. This is marked with an arrow in Figure 5. The best-fit width of the Gaussian component is $`\sigma _K=0.15`$, although $`\sigma _K=0.22`$ (as found for the Hipparcos red clump) is consistent with the data.

In Figure 7, we present a dereddened color-color diagram. The open circles are the Hipparcos red clump giants with $`1.95<M_K<1.35`$. The filled circles are the Baade’s Window red clump giants with $`12.7<K_0<13.2`$. We note again that these data are dereddened with the extinction coefficients from Tiede et al. (1995). The solid line is the solar neighborhood giant sequence from Bessell and Brett (1988; see also Fig. 14 of Tiede et al. 1995). Finally, the reddening vector is shown in the lower right ($`A_K`$ = 0.01 mag). All of the red clump giants lie along the fiducial sequence, and therefore none would be considered anomalous. This is in contrast to Baade’s Window giants of later spectral types (i.e., those with $`(VK)_0\stackrel{>}{}3.0`$ mag), which are known to have anomalously red colors (Tiede et al. 1995). The mean colors of the Baade’s Window and Hipparcos red clump giants plotted in Figure 7 are $`(VK)_0`$ = 2.47 and 2.34, and $`(VI)_0`$ = 1.09 and 1.00 mag, respectively. The mean colors of the Baade’s Window red clump would shift by $`\mathrm{\Delta }(VK)_0=0.14`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }(VI)_0=0.07`$ mag, if we adopt the ratios of $`A_V`$/$`A_K`$ and $`A_I`$/$`A_K`$ given by Tiede et al. (1995) and revise the Baade’s Window extinction by $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_K=+0.015`$ mag. In this case, the mean colors of the Baade’s Window and Hipparcos red clumps would be very nearly identical. However, given our number statistics, and allowing for small uncertainties in the extinction ratios, we prefer a slightly more conservative correction of $`\mathrm{\Delta }A_K=+0.01`$ mag. In summary, we adopt total extinctions of $`A_V`$/$`A_I`$/$`A_K`$ = 1.56/0.87/0.15, consistent with other determinations (see discussion in Alcock et al. 1998), in which case the mean colors of the Baade’s Window and Hipparcos red clumps agree to within a few percent.

Based on our analysis of the red clump colors, we revise the dereddened $`K`$-band brightness of the Baade’s Window red clump to $`<K_0>_{RC}=12.97\pm 0.11`$ mag. The true distance modulus to the Galactic center is then $`(mM)_0=14.58\pm 0.11`$ mag, which corresponds to $`R=8.24\pm 0.42`$ kpc. For comparison, Reid (1993) gives $`R=8.0\pm 0.5`$ kpc as the “best” mean of all measurements since 1974. We report only the statistical error, which is dominated by the small number of the Baade’s Window red clump giants examined here. The uncertainty in the extinction correction contributes a negligible systematic error. We expect no systematic error from the effects of mean clump metallicity, because the metallicities of the calibrating red clump giants and those in the Galactic bulge are the same. The systematic error from the photometric calibration of the Baade’s Window $`K`$-band data is $``$2% (Tiede et al. 1995). Paczyński and Stanek (1998) estimate that volume-sampling effects in the Baade’s Window data contribute a negligible $``$2% systematic error. Finally, systematic errors from the effects of mean clump age, helium abundance, or selective elemental enhancement are unknown.

We do not confirm the “color discrepancy” of $``$0.2 mag in $`(VI)_0`$ between the Baade’s Window and Hipparcos red clumps found by Paczyński and Stanek (1998; see also Paczyński 1998). Stanek et al. (1999) and Paczyński et al. (1999) have since published new multi-color optical photometry of the red clump in Baade’s Window. As discussed by these authors, the original color discrepancy arose partly from photometric calibration error. For example, Paczyński et al. (1999) now find that the Baade’s Window red clump is $``$0.1 mag redder in $`(VI)_0`$ than the Hipparcos red clump. For the same field surveyed by Tiede et al. (1995), Paczyński et al. (1999) find a mean dereddened color of $`(VI)_0=1.11`$ mag. They adopt $`E(VI)=0.60`$ mag, which corresponds to a mean apparent color of $`(VI)=1.71`$ mag. For comparison, the Tiede et al. (1995) data plotted in Figure 6 have a mean apparent color of $`(VI)=1.74`$ mag. Given these similar apparent colors, our analysis of the $`(VI)_0`$, $`(VK)_0`$ color-color diagram suggests that the remaining $``$0.1 mag color discrepancy in $`(VI)_0`$ found by Paczyński et al. (1999) may be reconciled with a small adjustment of the Baade’s Window extinction zero-point (assuming standard extinction ratios). We emphasize that uncertainties associated with the extinction correction contribute a negligible systematic error to our $`K`$-band distance measurement.

## 5 Conclusion

Hipparcos measured accurate parallaxes for several hundred red clump giants in the solar neighborhood. These stars may be useful standard candles. We have assembled $`K`$-band photometry data from the literature for 238 of these Hipparcos red clump giants and calculated the mean absolute magnitude, $`M_K=1.61\pm 0.03`$ mag. The advantage of our $`K`$-band calibration compared to the previously employed $`I`$-band calibration is a decreased sensitivity to reddening, and perhaps also a reduced systematic dependence on metallicity. Using published $`K`$-band photometry of Baade’s Window, we derive the distance to the Galactic center, $`R=8.24\pm 0.42`$ kpc. The error in this distance measurement is dominated by the small number of Baade’s Window red clump giants examined here. Suggestions for future work include refining the distance to the Galactic center by using a larger sample of red clump giants with known metallicities, reddenings, and $`K`$-band photometry. Our $`K`$-band red clump calibration may also be used to determine the distance to the LMC, which currently serves as the zero-point for the extragalactic distance scale.

## 6 Acknowledgements

David Alves thanks Andrezej Udalski, Kris Stanek, Howard Bond, Nino Panagia, and Nichole King for their useful comments on an early version of this paper. The anonymous referee is thanked for several useful remarks concerning the error analysis. Support from the STScI Director’s Discretionary Research Fund is acknowledged.