Spinning particles moving around black holes: integrability and chaos

Abstract

The motion of a stellar compact object around a supermassive black hole can be approximated by the motion of a spinning test particle. The equations of motion describing such systems are in general non-integrable, and therefore, chaotic motion should be expected. This article discusses the integrability issue of the spinning particle for the cases of Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetime, and then it focuses on a canonical Hamiltonian formalism where the spin of the particle is included only up to the linear order.