Reference for spacetime metric precision

From: John H. Seago (contractor) <"John>
Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 20:35:15 -0400

Steve,

> The spacetime metric adopted by the IAU does not have enough terms in
> it to generalize to a solar-system wide coordinate system with full
> precision of current atomic clocks in the vicinity of rotating,
> gravitating bodies. In a rough sense the metric was designed to
> permit the definition of a self-consistent coordinate frame out to
> around twice the geostationary radius.
>
> In the broader sense, even a solar-system barycentric coordinate frame
> is suspect at the level measurable by current atomic clocks, and that
> is part of the motivation for the various international scientific
> unions recommending the establishement of a pulsar-based time scale.

I am not an astonomer and am not familar with all the associated
literature, nor am I a relativist, nor have I done precision studies
(yet) as they pertain to such.

With that said, and being too lazy / busy to immediately delve into it
myself, do you know of a citable reference that supports what you just in
so many words?

J.Seago
Received on Wed Aug 17 2005 - 17:45:33 PDT