Gravitational Larmor precession

Abstract

Inspired by the reported existence of substantive magnetic fields in the vicinity of the central supermassive black holes in Sagitarius A* and Messier 87*, we consider test particle motion in the spacetime close to a generic spherical black hole in the presence of magnetic fields in its vicinity. Modelling such a spacetime in terms of an axisymmetric, non-rotating Ernst-Melvin-Schwarzschild black hole geometry with appropriate parameters, we compute the geodesic nodal-plane precession frequency for a test particle with mass, for such a spacetime, and obtain a non-vanishing result, surpassing earlier folklore that only axisymmetric spacetimes with rotation (non-vanishing Kerr parameter) can generate such a precession. We call this magnetic field-generated phenomenon Gravitational Larmor Precession. What we present here is a Proof of Concept incipient assay, rather than a detailed analysis of supermassive black holes with magnetic fields in their neighbourhood. However, for completeness, we briefly discuss observational prospects of this precession in terms of available magnetic field strengths close to central black holes in galaxies.

9 pages including 2 figures, matches published version

References in corpus (8)

• Supermassive black holes as possible sources of ultra high energy cosmic rays
• Fast variability from black-hole binaries
• Circular orbits in Kerr-Taub-NUT spacetime and their implications for accreting black holes and naked singularities
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• Curvature Invariants for accelerating Kerr-Newman black holes in (anti-)de Sitter spacetime
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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Magnetic Penrose process in the magnetized Kerr spacetime
• Geometric phase in Taub-NUT spacetime
• Black holes shielded by magnetic fields
• Study of a Tilted Thin Accretion Disk around a Kerr-Taub-NUT black hole
• Lagrange top: integrability according to Liouville and examples of analytic solutions
• Spin Precession in magnetized Kerr spacetime
• Review of the Gravitomagnetic Clock Effect
• Orbital Motion in Spacetimes Influenced by the Presence of Scalar and Electromagnetic Fields