Periapsis shift in spherically symmetric spacetimes and effects of electric interactions*

Abstract

The periapsis shift of charged test particles in arbitrary static and spherically symmetric charged spacetimes are studied. Two perturbative methods, the near-circular approximation and post-Newtonian methods, are developed and shown to be very accurate when the results are determined to high orders. The near-circular approximation method is more precise when eccentricity e of the orbit is small, whereas the post-Newtonian method is more effective when orbit semilatus rectum p is large. Results from these two methods are shown to agree when both e is small and p is large. These results are then applied to the Reissner-Nordström spacetime, the Einstein-Maxwell-dilation gravity, and a charged wormhole spacetime. The effects of various parameters on the periapsis shift, particularly that of the electrostatic interaction, are carefully studied. The periapsis shift data of the solar-Mercury are then used to constrain the charges of the Sun and Mercury, and the data of the Sgr A*-S2 periapsis shift are used to determine, for the first time using this method, the constraints of the charges of Sgr A* and S2.