Investigating spinning test particles: spin supplementary conditions and the Hamiltonian formalism

Abstract

In this paper we report the results of a thorough numerical study of the motion of spinning particles in Kerr spacetime with different prescriptions. We first evaluate the Mathisson-Papapetrou equations with two different spin supplementary conditions, namely, the Tulczyjew and the Newton-Wigner, and make a comparison of these two cases. We then use the Hamiltonian formalism given by Barausse, Racine, and Buonanno in [Phys. Rev. D, 80, 104025 (2009)] to evolve the orbits and compare them with the corresponding orbits provided by the Mathisson-Papapetrou equations. We include a full description of how to treat the issues arising in the numerical implementation.