LAGEOS II Perigee Shift and Schwarzschild Gravitoelectric Field

The general relativity shift of LAGEOS II perigee due to Schwarzschild gravitoelectric field has been analyzed. From our results, using the actual gravity field solution EGM96, we are potentially able to estimate LAGEOS II general relativistic shift with a 2percent accuracy, over an observational period of about 7 years. The larger errors are due to the uncertainties in the even zonal harmonics of the Earth gravity field and to the nongravitational perturbations mismodelling. This result can be viewed as a 2percent accuracy in the determination of the combination epsilon = (2 + 2gamma - beta)/3 of the parametrized post Newtonian (PPN) parameters gamma and beta. The result obtained may be used to test general relativity against other theories of gravity. In particular the result may be used to constrain a Yukawa like interaction with a range of about 1 Earth radii.