Eccentric Motion of Spinning Compact Binaries

Abstract

The equations of motion for spinning compact binaries on eccentric orbits are treated perturbatively in powers of a fractional mass-difference ordering parameter. The solution is valid through first order in the mass-difference parameter. A canonical point transformation removes the leading order terms of the spin-orbit Hamiltonian which induce a wiggling precession of the orbital angular momentum around the conserved total angular momentum, a precession which disappears in the case of equal masses or one single spin. Action-angle variables are applied which make a canonical perturbation theory easily treatable.