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Gravitational Physics

Spin Dynamics in General Relativity

Speaker: Satish Kumar Saravanan (Leiden University)
Date: Friday 6 May 2016
Time: 11:15
Venue: Committee Room Ground Floor

The motion of spinning particles in curved space-time is described with a covariant hamiltonian formalism. A large class of hamiltonian can be used with the model-independent Poisson-Dirac brackets, to obtain the equations of motion. Here we apply the formalism with the minimal hamiltonian to the case of spherically symmetric space-time: Schwarzschild. We show that the periastron of a spinning body in a stable orbit in a Schwarzschild background not only precess but also varies radially. By analyzing the stability conditions for circular motion we find the ISCO as a function of spin. Finally we show the geodetic precession of the bound orbits.