Remark on orbital precession due to central-force perturbations

Abstract

This is a comment on the recent paper by G. S. Adkins and J. McDonnell ``Orbital precession due to central-force perturbations'' published in Phys. Rev. D75 (2007), 082001 [arXiv:gr-qc/0702015]. We show that the main result of this paper, the formula for the precession of Keplerian orbits induced by central-force perturbations, can be obtained very simply by the use of Hamilton's vector.

3 pages, ReVTeX4, title changed to match the version to be published in Phys. Rev. D, one new reference added, minor corrections in the text