Gravitational spin Hall effect in the Reissner-Nordström black holes: evolution equations and charge effects

Abstract

We study the spinoptics equations for test electromagnetic wave in the Reissner-Nordström spacetime. The explicit and hidden symmetries of this background allow the complex null tetrad parallel-propagated along the null geodesic to be constructed explicitly. From this tetrad we obtain the evolution equations for the deviation of the ray from the null geodesic and for the tilting angle of its orbital plane. In these equations the charge term enters with a sign opposite to the mass term. Numerical integration confirms that the gravitational spin Hall effect becomes weaker with increasing charge: at a fixed impact parameter away from the critical value, the magnitude of the dimensionless tilting angle decreases with $Q$. As the turning point approaches the photon sphere, its magnitude grows firstly, and then exhibits an oscillatory behavior. Since the physical tilting angle is proportional to the reduced wavelength, it remains small whenever the spinoptics approximation is applicable. A divergence occurs only when the ray travels on the photon sphere.