Deviation of nonradial geodesics in a static spherically symmetric space-time

Abstract

The article generalizes the description of tidal forces to the case of geodesics with non-zero angular momentum in the metric of static spherically symmetric black holes. We show that the geodesic deviation equation can be diagonalized even with non-radial free motion of a test body in the gravitational field. We present expressions for the spatial components of the tidal force in a spherically symmetric metric. We also solve geodesic deviation equation in the Schwarzschild metric and demonstrate how the presence of angular momentum and its magnitude affect the solution.