IMPACT OF FRAME DRAGGING ON THE KEPLER FREQUENCY OF RELATIVISTIC STARS

It has long been known that in general relativity the centrifugal forc e on an element in a rotating star involves the frequency of the star relative to the frequency at which the local inertial frame is dragged by the rotation. Intuitively, one would expect that this would increa se the critical frequency at which rotation disrupts the star. Our ana lysis shows the opposite to be true and gives theoretical underpinning to a commonly used empirical formula for the Kepler frequency of a ro tating star.