LARES/WEBER-SAT and the equivalence principle

Viale Unità di Italia 68, 70125, Bari, Italy

Corresponding author: lorenzo.iorio@libero.it

Received: 13 June 2007
Accepted: 26 September 2007

Abstract

It has often been claimed that the proposed Earth artificial satellite LARES/WEBER-SAT —whose primary goal is, in fact, the measurement of the general relativistic Lense-Thirring effect at a some percent level— would allow greatly improving, among (many) other things, the present-day (10^-13) level of accuracy in testing the equivalence principle as well. Recent claims point towards even two orders of magnitude better, i.e. 10^-15. In this letter we show that such a goal is, in fact, unattainable by many orders of magnitude being, instead, the achievable level ≈ 10^-9.