Relativistic tidal effects on clock-comparison experiments

Cheng-Gang Qin, Yu-Jie Tan and Cheng-Gang Shao

MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurements & Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, PGMF and School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074,
People’s Republic of China

We consider the relativistic tidal effects on frequency shift of clock-comparison experiments. The relativistic formulation for frequency shift and time transfer is derived in the gravitational field of a tidal, axisymmetric, and rotating Earth. With the help of Love numbers describing the tidal response of solid Earth, we formulize the mathematical connection between tidal effects from the ground-based clock-comparison experiments and the local gravity tides from the gravimeters, which in turn provides us an approach to eliminate tidal influences on clock comparison with the local gravity tides data. Moreover, we develop a method of the perturbed Kepler orbit to determine relativistic effects of clock comparison for space missions, which allows more precise calculations comparing to the conventional method of unperturbed Kepler orbit. With this perturbed method, it can give the perturbation of relativistic effects due to the orbital changes under the influences of tidal forces, Earth’s oblateness etc. In addition, as the applications of our results, we simulate tidal effects in frequency shift for the clock comparison on the ground and also give some estimates for TianQin mission and GPS.