Inertial forces (indirect terms) in problems with a central body
Gravitational systems in astrophysics often comprise a body – the primary – that far outweights the others, and which is taken as the centre of the reference frame. A fictitious acceleration, also known as the indirect term, must therefore be added to all other bodies in the system to compensate for the absence of motion of the primary. In this Research Note, we first stress that there is not one indirect term but as many indirect terms as there are bodies in the system that exert a gravitationa