Gravitomagnetic time-varying effects on the motion of a test particle

We study the effects of a time-varying gravitomagnetic field on the motion of test particles. Starting from recent results, we consider the gravitomagnetic field of a source whose spin angular momentum has a linearly time-varying magnitude. The acceleration due to such a time-varying gravitomagnetic field is considered as a perturbation of the Newtonian motion, and we explicitly evaluate the effects of this perturbation on the Keplerian elements of a closed orbit. The theoretical predictions are compared with actual astronomical and astrophysical scenarios, both in the solar system and in binary pulsars systems, in order to evaluate the impact of these effects on real systems. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.