GENERAL RELATIVISTIC CALCULATIONS OF PRECESSION AROUND RAPIDLY ROTATING NEUTRON STARS

Neutron stars offer a unique opportunity to explore the interplay of strong gravitational fields and matter at super-nuclear density via relativistic effects such as frame-dragging. I will explain how a detailed description of the Lense-Thirring precession of orbits can be obtained using the equations of general relativity. The calculations presented go beyond the usual weak field approximations for the frame-dragging and quadrupole precessions and provide an approximate expression for the precession of orbits in the region close to a neutron star. The results in this report show that the exact strong field effects are very important for neutron stars which are described by a stiff equation of state: the precession frequencies for these stars differ greatly from the usual weak field approximations.