General-relativistic celestial mechanics. I. Method and definition of reference systems

We present a new formalism for treating the general-relativistic celestial mechanics of systems of $N$ arbitrarily composed and shaped, weakly self-gravitating, rotating, deformable bodies. This formalism is aimed at yielding a complete description, at the first post-Newtonian approximation level, of (i) the global dynamics of such $N$-body systems ("external problem"), (ii) the local gravitational structure of each body ("internal problem"), and, (iii) the way the external and the internal problems fit together ("theory of reference systems"). This formalism uses in a complementary manner $N+1$ coordinate charts (or "reference systems"): one "global" chart for describing the overall dynamics of the $N$ bodies, and $N$ "local" charts adapted to the separate description of the structure and environment of each body. The main tool which allows us to develop, in an elegant manner, a constructive theory of these $N+1$ reference systems is a systematic use of a particular "exponential" parametrization of the metric tensor which has the effect of linearizing both the field equations, and the transformation laws under a change of reference system. This linearity allows a treatment of the first post-Newtonian relativistic celestial mechanics which is, from a structural point of view, nearly as simple and transparent as its Newtonian analogue. Our scheme differs from previous attempts in several other respects: the structure of the stress-energy tensor is left completely open; the spatial coordinate grid (in each system) is fixed by algebraic conditions while a convenient "gauge" flexibility is left open in the time coordinate [at the order $\ensuremath{\delta}t=O({c}^{\ensuremath{-}4})$]; the gravitational field locally generated by each body is skeletonized by particular relativistic multipole moments recently introduced by Blanchet and Damour, while the external gravitational field experienced by each body is expanded in terms of a particular new set of relativistic tidal moments. In this first paper we lay the foundations of our formalism, with special emphasis on the definition and properties of the $N$ local reference systems, and on the general structure and transformation properties of the gravitational field. As an illustration of our approach we treat in detail the simple case where each body can, in some approximation, be considered as generating a spherically symmetric gravitational field. This "monopole truncation" leads us to a new (and, in our opinion, improved) derivation of the Lorentz-Droste-Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann equations of motion. The detailed treatment of the relativistic motion of bodies endowed with arbitrary multipole structure will be the subject of subsequent publications.