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Proc. R.Soc. Lond.A 375, 185-193 (1981)

Printed in Great Britain

Conserved quantities of spinning test particles

in general relativity. I
B y R. R udiger

Institut furAstronomie und Astrophysik der

Am Hubland, D8700 Wurzburg,

{Communicated by R.Penrose, F.R.S. - Received 10 March 1980)

This is the first of two papers devoted to conserved quantities of spinning

test particles in general relativity. In this paper, a general scheme is
described according to which these quantities can be investigated. It is
shown that the general linear conserved quantity consists of a sum, the
first term of which is the well known expression constructed from a Killing
vector field, and the second term is of the form UklSkl, where 17*a6 is a
Killing-Yano tensor field, which is constrained by two additional
equations.

1. I n t r o d u c t i o n
Carter (1968) has shown that the Kerr metric and related metrics admit a fourth
constant of motion for free particles. This constant can be constructed from a
Killing tensor, the existence of which is closely related to the Petrov type of the Weyl
tensor (Walker & Penrose 1970). Since 1970 a number of papers have appeared on
Killing tensors and related objects (see, for example, the references of Dietz &
Rudiger (1980)). A complete review of the literature on Killing tensors until 1973
has been given by Dietz (1973). In spite of this, very little seems to be known about
the physical meaning of the Killing tensor of the Kerr metric. One possible inter­
pretation of the Killing-Yano tensor (Yano 1952; Penrose 1973) associated with the
Killing tensor of the Kerr metric in the linear approximation has been mentioned
by Hughston et al. (1973).
This is the first of two papers devoted to a special class of Killing tensors which
seems to be especially interesting physically. In the Schwarzschild solution, the
Killing tensor of the Kerr metric reduces to the square of the angular momentum
in the usual sense. In the Kerr metric (for 0), a similar interpretation can be
given by introducing a ‘potential angular momentum’ (Rudiger 1973). This fact
has led to the following question: under what general conditions does there exist
something like a classical spin-orbit coupling for spinning test particles in a curved
background? More precisely, we suppose that the test particle under consideration
has a spin momentum. We then try to establish the existence of a quadratic con­
served quantity for such a particle.
As our starting-point we adopt the equations of Papapetrou (1951), which take
into account the spin of the particle only, and no higher multipole moments. For
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186 R. Rudiger
macroscopic bodies it is not realistic to neglect the quadrupole curvature terms in
the equations of motion because these may be larger than the spin curvature
terms, f We, however, are interested primarily in the effect of spin-orbit coupling,
which should show up by neglecting the quadrupole and higher moments of the test
particle. Nevertheless, this work might also be helpful in considerations on the
effect of the spin-spin repulsion (Wald 1972, see also Hawking 1971) or in studying
the motion of a spinning test particle in the field of a black hole (Rasband 1973;
Wald 1974; Tod et al. 1976; Hojman & Hojman 1977; Hojman 1978; Caderni &
Calvani 1979).
Interest in quadratic conserved quantities emerges from the fact that in a general
relativistic gravitational field such irreducible quantities can exist, in contrast to
the electromagnetic field in a fiat space-time. (Irreducible means that the quantity
cannot be written as the product of linear conserved quantities and the square of
the mass.)
Requiring that
Klmplp m+ Ltpl + M = const. (1
along the world line of a charged particle in an electromagnetic field in Minkowski
space-time for arbitrarily given initial conditions, one finds that must be a
Killing tensor. In a flat space-time, however, irreducible Killing tensors do not
exist (Katzin & Levine 1965). So, as a quadratic conserved quantity for a charged
particle in a flat space-time, (1.1) is trivial.
In this paper, we consider two problems. First, in § 2, the equations of motion
for spinning test particles are cast into a form which is adapted to the two problems
in the subsequent sections. In § 3, a general scheme is described according to which
the conditions for the coefficients of a conserved polynomial in the momentum and
spin variables can be derived. Finally, in §4, the equations for the linear case are
worked out in full detail. Our result is that the general linear conserved quantity
for spinning particles may be constructed from a Killing vector field and a Killing-
Yano tensor field, where the latter has to satisfy certain algebraic constraints. The
first of these statements is of course well known. In a subsequent paper, the quad­
ratic case will be considered.
We use the conventions of Schild (1967). So, the signature is ( --------- h). The
sign of the curvature tensor is fixed by
^ va
]-,[bc= vkRkabc>
and the Ricci tensor is defined by
Rab = Rkabk-
Furthermore, let i]abcd be the completely skew-symmetric Levi-Civita symbol.
The dual of a skew-symmetric tensor Eab is then defined by
E*ab = kVabkl^kl-
t I th an k Professor Jurgen Ehlers for a discussion on this point.
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Conserved quantities of spinning test particles. I 187

Two properties of the operation Eab-> E*ab are E**ab =
are skew, E*klF kl = EklF*kl.

2. T he e q u a t io n s of m o tio n of a s p in n in g
TEST PARTICLE
An exact derivation of the equations of Papapetrou has been given by Dixon
(1970a, 19706, 1973, 1974)- These equations are
Pa = —\R aldmv(2.1)
gab = 2p iav b\ (2.2)

S akP k = 0. (2.3)
These are fourteen equations for the unknown functions p a{s), Sab(s), and xa(s).
Instead of the spin tensor Sab, one can also introduce the spin vector Sa by

Sa = ~ hakim
(2-4)
where p a = /ma, ukuk = 1, use being made of (2.3). Equation (2.4) can be solved
for Sab:
Sab = riabkl8 kUi= 2$ [aw6]*.
The initial data p a(0), Sab(0 ),and xa(0) d
particle uniquely. Therefore, the velocity va of the particle can be expressed by the
momentum p a, the spin Sab, and curvature terms. This relation may be obtained
in the following way, where we follow Kiinzle (1972) (see also Dixon 1970 a).
Contracting (2.2) with pb yields
p [avk]p k = \&akp k,
which implies, by using the relation (2.3),

Kvk = ( 2 .6)

where hk = 8k —uauk. These equations can be solved most easily in an adapted

tetrad system, with respect to which
p a = (0,0,0 ,p4) = 0,0,0,1)
and Sab = 0 except for a = 2and 6 = 3.
Then, (2.6) takes the form
v1 = 0,
v 2 = /i~ 2(8 23)2 (R 2323v 2 - J?2334v4)>

t;3 = p~2(S23)2R( 2323v3+ R 232i V

v * -v x = 0.
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188 R. Rudiger
The solution of these equations, written in invariant form, is
liva = v \p a- \p - 2A ^ 8 akRklmnplSmn
where A= 1 —\p~2Rpqrs8m8rs. The component v4is fixed by the condition vkvk = 1
The explicit expression for v4 will not be used, however. For later use, we write
(2.7) in a different form. By using the relation (2.5) and
=i r)bcklK Si = -S<*bue\
(2.7) can be cast into the form
(p2A/vx) va = ju,2ua+ (2.8)
So, according to (2.8), we always have vkSk = 0, but vkSka # 0 in general.
The derivation of the differential conditions for conserved quantities of spinning
particles requires the variation of p aand subject to
constraint can be taken into account in the following way. We write the vector Sa
in the form
Sa = hak8k
with an arbitrary 8a. Obviously, one obtains all vectors Sa of the three-subspace
at x, which is orthogonal to p a, if 8a is varied arbitrarily. Of course, the projection
tensor does not enter into the expression S[aub]:
S[aub] = 8 [aub\
Therefore, by introducing the tensor

l a* de, = I'™id9e, )+ IideaaS%' (2-9)

where
labcd = * (R2 . 10 )

(2.8) can be written in terms of 8a:

(ju2A
/ v4) va = fipa+ /i~3I aklirspqprps Sk
The tensor Iabcd is related to *R*abCd in the same way as the Jacobi tensor is
related to the curvature tensor. Therefore, the algebraic symmetries of Iabcd are

l abcd 1cdab ^(ab) icd) ’ ^a (bed) 0, 2 ^aribc

Equation (2.10) can be solved for *R*abca by

* R *abcd ~ — 3
The traces of Iabcd are
I/fab ~ ~ 2Iakkb @ab-
The tensor I abcdef will play a role in the following sections. Its symmetries are
Jabc
1
__ Ta(bc),
def ~ 1 (
Tab
1 (
, __
) ~ 0.
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Conserved quantities of spinning test .I 189

The last of these algebraic symmetries expresses the fact that S a may have an
arbitrary component in the direction of pwa hich ca

3. T h e general scheme

In this section the general scheme is described according to which conserved

quantities for spinning test particles can be investigated. First a well known fact
is stated. The requirement that the polynomial

Q(pa) = S
N=1
K N k1.

where K Nai aN is totally symmetric, is a constant along geodesics implies that the
tensors K Nax aN are Killing tensors for each N.
An analogous ansatz for spinning particles would be

Q(p°,S«») = £ S _ ^ h ..^ * p ^ ...p ^ - .. (3.1)

N —l v=0
In this expression, the tensors A (Nv\ are supposed to be skew-symmetric with
respect to any of the pairs krlr, symmetric with respect to interchanging two pairs
kply) and symmetric with respect to the indices mr. Furthermore,
0 and A (Nv) r = 0
fll& l.. . t t y — l[6p —itty&y]Cl.. .CJV’—p ^ aibi...avr C2 . . . c y - V

The form of this ansatz is motivated by the fact that one obtains a polynomial like
(3.1) if the conserved quantity for spinning particles associated to Killing vectors
is squared or is raised to a higher power, or if two such quantities are multiplied
with each other. Therefore, reducible conserved quantities of higher orders are
included in the ansatz (3.1).
The equations of motion (2.1)-(2.3) are invariant under a rescaling by a constant
of the momentum and the spin variables. This rescaling must leave (3.1) conserved.
Consequently, for each N, the polynomial

2 A(mklh...kvivml...mN- vSklh“ .Skvlvpm'-■-P™*-* = const. (3.2)

»»=0
is conserved separately. Henceforth, we shall omit the index N. By differentiating
the expression (3.2) along the path of a spinning particle, one obtains a sum of
the following form:

S . . . 8 ^ p ^ . . . p ^ - = 0, (3.3)
v= 0

where, with respect to their first N indices, the coefficients Biv) are presumed to
have the same symmetries as the tensors . For all (0 ^ ^ N), B(v) consists
of a sum, the first term of which is the first covariant derivative of A M ; moreover,
jB(0) also contains A (1), Bw (for 1 ^ A ^ N —l) contains A(A+1) an
and B{N) contains A(iV-1) .
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190 R. Rudiger
By dualizing on each one of the pairs krlr it can be achieved that, instead of
the spin tensors Sab,the tensors S^aiub^ appear in (3.3). In this ter
vector Sacan be replaced by Sa. This leads us to an expression of the following form:

S C'fckfA ...S b i = 0, (3.4)

y=o r
where C{v)lk\;;\N = C®$£;;&#) and each of these tensors will be obtained from
by an algebraical rearranging of components.
After inserting the expression (2.11) into (3.4) one obtains, by varying 8 a andpa,
the following five tensor equations:
(3.5)

= °> (3 -6 )

= o (2 < ” < * ), (3-7)

= 0. <3-8>
= 0. (3.9)
The first of these equations simply states that the coefficient A(0)ai is a Killing
tensor. This is, of course, to be expected because SklSkl is conserved and the equa­
tions of motion (2.1)-(2.3) reduce to the equations of geodesics in the case Sab = 0.
Equations (3.5)-(3.7) are coupled first-order differential equations for the
(0 ^ v^N). In addition, the first derivatives of A(iV-1) and A(iV) are con­
strained by (3.8) and (3.9).
The number of components of the individual equations (3.5)-(3.9) are (iv^4),
4(a?3~4), (^s4-6) C33) (for 2 ^ v^N),
equations, however, are not all independent. For the cases = 1 and 2 we
shall show that this number can be reduced considerably by suitable algebraic
manipulations.

4. T he l in e a r case

Fuchs (1977) has made a first attempt to give a linear conserved quantity for
spinning particles that is more general than the well known expression constructed
from a Killing vector field. He considered the conditions that a quantity of the form
A^a) A(b) Skl is conserved for a spinning particle, where A^a) is an orthonormal frame.
In the linear case, our ansatz requires that
£kpk + FklSkl= const.
along the centre-of-mass line of the spinning particle, where Fab = F[ab]. Differentiat­
ing this expression along the world line of the particle, we obtain

vm{(£k;m + %Fkm)Pk + i^kl;m ~ =9

or
vm{Ukm Pk+P'~1Vklmp k=(4.2)
0
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Conserved quantities of spinning test particles. I 191

with the abbreviations

C ab = \%>a\b^~>^
ab Vabc =

Here, Sa is the orthogonal projection of S a with respect to the momentum of the

particle, as has been described in § 2.
Inserting the explicit relation (2.11) between va, p a, and Sab into (4.2), we obtain
i nU{u)pkp'~v\m,p'pmS k +/i-:,i M(mnqur)spmp np«prSicSl
Vm\* p np , v rp°5k8l5m = 0. (4.3)
Now, the initial values of p and S a can be chosen arbitrarily; ther
metrized coefficients of the polynomial (4.3) must vanish. Consequently, the con­
ditions for (4.1) to be conserved are
9 C(ab) 2 (4.4)
9 = Vaibc) ~ ~ F*o(b;c)~ %£kR*k(bc)a> (4.5)
9 = I kab(cde Uf)k, (4.6)
0 = I k(ab(def (4.7)
Suppose the Killing equation (4.4) has been solved. Uab is obviously skew-symmetric
and can be chosen as a field variable instead of Fab. Then, for Vabc, using the inte-
grability conditions £a;ftc = E,kRkcbaof (4.4), we obtain
rabc — —^77*ab\c%
V

Therefore, (4.5) tells us that U*ab is a Killing-Yano tensor. This implies that Vabc
is totally skew-symmetric and is therefore dual to a vector, say Aa:
^abc Vabck
Equations (4.6) and (4.7) can be simplified by forming suitable traces and inserting
these into the original equations. The equivalent versions of (4.6) and (4.7) are the
equations (4.9) and (4.10).
We summarize our results. The general linear conserved quantity for spinning
particles is of the form
Zkp k - UkMskl+ umskl = const-
Here, £a has to be a Killing vector field and U*ab has to be a Killing-Yano tensor
field:
£(a ;b)= 0, = 0. (4.8)
Uab and the vector A° associated with the Killing-Yano tensor U*ab by U*ab;c
= r/abck A* are subject to the algebraic constraints
* R ^ (cUd)k+ iO’*<-S^Ud)t- i U t,*M *\fH bd\ = 0, (4.9)
- + A* + A * * V V 8 = 0. (4.10)
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192 R. Rudiger
The only non-trivial traces of these equations are
G \aUb)k= 0, Gk(a7jcb
A
)kl
Obviously, the effect of the transformation of variables -> is to decompose
the conserved quantity into two parts, each of which is conserved for itself.

5. D is c u s s io n

It is well known that a space of constant curvature admits the maximum number
of linearly independent Killing-Yano tensors (Tachibana 1968,1969). It can easily
be verified that in such a space, in which the curvature tensor takes the form
abed6"
the equations (4.9) and (4.10) are fulfilled. So, in a space of constant curvature
there exist additional conserved quantities of the form Skl. It is unfortunate that
these are trivial, because the particle trajectories are geodesics in this case and the
spin undergoes parallel propagation along the geodesics.
In the Kerr metric, which admits a Killing-Yano tensor, the algebraic constraints
are not fulfilled. This can most easily be seen by observing that in this case
AkC*k(ab)c# which contradicts (4.11). If, however, those terms in the equations
of motion are neglected which are quadratic in the spin, as has been done by
Rasband (1973), then the algebraic constraints (4.9) and (4.10) do not appear.
Therefore, within this approximation, there exists another linear conserved quan­
tity for spinning test particles in the Kerr solution. This quantity can be written in
the form L -S = const, by identifying the orbital angular momentum L
U*akp kand the spin momentum with Sa.So, the
momentum in the direction of the spin momentum is conserved.
A detailed investigation of equations (4.8)-(4.10) will be given in a forthcoming
paper.
The author wishes to thank R. Ebert and W. Dietz for discussions and for reading
the manuscript, and a referee for a simplifying argument concerning § 3.

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Conserved quantities of spinning test particles. I 193

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