Can extended bodies follow geodesic trajectories?

Abstract

We provide an extension of the analysis on whether an extended test body can follow a geodesic trajectory given by Mukherjee, S., Lukes-Gerakopoulos, G. and Nayak, R. K. (2022), Extended bodies moving on geodesic trajectories, General Relativity and Gravitation, 54(9), 113, arXiv: 1907.05659. In particular, we consider a test body in a pole-dipole-quadrupole approximation under the Ohashi-Kyrian-Semerák spin supplementary condition moving in the Schwarzschild and Kerr background. Using orbital setups under which a pole-dipole body can follow geodesic motion, we explore under which conditions this can take place also in the pole-dipole-quadrupole approximation, when only the mass quadrupole is taken into account. For our analysis we employ the assumption that the dipole contribution and the quadrupole contribution vanish independently.

arXiv comment8 pages, Proceedings of RAGtime 23-25, Edited by Z. Stuchlík, G. Török , V. Karas and D. Lančová, Silesian University in Opava